Far North Region: Dry Season Accentuates Water Crisis

As the International Community yesterday March 22, 2021 celebrated World Water Day, the people of the Far North Region are going through severe conditions with the lack of drinking water at its peak.

The dry season in the region has caused an unprecedented dryness throughout the region, causing inhabitants to travel for several kilometers to fetch drinking water.

“We have to travel for several kilometers in search of water, and all this to have one or two 20-litter cans of water. Sometimes even the children do not go to school because they accompany us and without water, it is death,” relates Moussa, head of a family and an inhabitant of the Mayo Tsanaga Division.

“Men women and children are dying of thirst in our region. Water is so scarce that even the little kids are called up to search for the precious liquid,” he adds.

With the precarious water situations in some parts of the Far North Region, a 20-liter jug which on normal terms sells at 50frs, is sold to the population at 200frs, especially in the locality of Mokolo.

The people of the Mokio locality in Tokombere of Mayo Sava still reel of the tragedy which befell them, as four kids died while they set out with their parents in search of water. Some community leaders have started calling on various communities in the Far North Region to start raising funds that could finance the drilling of boreholes in each of these crisis striken localities.

The lack of water in the Far North Region only adds to another crisis in the guise of the Boko Haram, which the population have been dealing with for over 10 years now.

These numerous crisis in the region has forced multitudes to travel for long distances mostly on bicycles and donkeys in search of refuge and water. Many often die on the way or contract severe diseases which increases the probability of death for all the inhabitants of the region.