Meningitis cases, drinking water shortage in Khartoum

The Children's Emergency Hospital in Omdurman has received more than 50 cases of meningitis within the past two weeks, amid a severe heat wave that sweeps central Sudan. Residents in parts of Khartoum took to the streets in protest against drinking water cuts.

On Thursday, a hospital official reported 53 cases of meningitis being treated.

Dozens of women of El Kalakla area in Khartoum went out to protest against the disruption of water supply to their homes for two weeks. 

Residents of El Halfaya in Khartoum North, El Kalakla in southern Khartoum, El Goz, and Sharg El Nil in eastern Khartoum have complained about the interruption of drinking water supply.

They now have to depend on donkey carts, distributing water, they told Radio Dabanga. The price of a barrel of water has risen to SDG70 ($11,60), they complained.

Shortages of fuel and bread have also been reported in El Gezira, River Nile and El Gedaref states.

Hisham Taj El Sir, head of the Logistics and Distribution Department of the Oil Ministry, said that the lack of in diesoline, needed for the water engines, was caused by “the smuggling of allocated amounts from site to site, and from one state at the expense of another”.