Hours turn into days – sometimes as many as four or five – as hundreds of parched people, mostly women and children, stand in kilometre-long queues for life-saving water.
The scorching sun and temperatures of 45°C do not help. The people are weak and weary. And sometimes, by the time they get to the tap, it has run dry.
To say life in Gubio internally displaced persons’ camp is hard, especially during Ramadan, is an understatement. Apart from the blazing heat, they spend the day searching for much-needed water. And, because they are fasting during daylight, some are just too weak – especially the elderly – to go looking for it. And water is life. Without it no living being can survive.
Gubio is a protective IDP camp near Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno State. It is home to about 30,000 people living in more than 4,000 households. Gubio camp is yet to be closed, despite a directive from the Borno State government last year that ordered the official closure of all protective IDPs camps within Maiduguri so that the displaced people living there could return and resettle in their respective ancestral homes.
But Gubio is still open and there is a desperate water shortage in the camp. If they can’t face standing in the long queues, many people trek for long distances under a blazing sun to fetch water elsewhere; others buy water at exorbitant prices.
RNI visited the camp, where there are solar-powered boreholes with overhead tanks, as well as taps, dotted around the camp. Hundreds of people, mostly women and children, stand in long queues, spending hours – or days – waiting for the slow-running taps to fill their buckets and jerrycans; in fact, in any item that can hold water. The boreholes apparently are not functioning well, adding to the scarcity of water.
Some IDPs told RNI that water in the camp had been short of water for at least a year. But it has worsened because of the extreme weather conditions. Temperatures of 45°C cause massive dehydration.
Yagumsu Modu said: “This issue of water scarcity is very worrisome. Sometimes we have to spend two or three days waiting in a long queues for our turn to come. And, even after that, we don’t always get water because it has run out. You are lucky if there’s water by the time you get to the front of the queue.
“Sometimes, when we have a little money to hand, like ₦100 or ₦200, we will buy it from wheelbarrow pushers [water sellers] outside the camp in distant areas, such as Al-ansar and Chabbal,” she said.
“The situation is very critical, especially during Ramadan. Everything is costly and our husbands don’t have the means to get enough food and water for their families. We want the government or a humanitarian agency to help us. We need water to cool us down during the terribly hot days and for us to drink when we break the fast from sunset to sunrise.”
Babagana Maka said: “We have been experiencing this water scarcity for almost one year and three months now. You see old people, women and children suffering and struggling to fetch water at the taps that run very slowly so it takes a lot of time to fill a bucket or jerrycan. Sometimes, they have to trek for long distances to remote areas, such as Chabbal and the First Monguno filling station, near the Maimalari barracks, to fetch some water.
“Here in the camp, one kettle of water is sold at ₦20 to ₦25, while one jerrycan of water costs ₦70 to ₦80 and there is not enough water to sustain one from morning to evening, and certainly not for a few days, unless you have enough containers of water in your home.
“Sometimes, people find it very difficult to sleep at night, especially elderly people, who have spent the day struggling and suffering to get water. I feel especially sorry for the old people because they don’t have children or grandchildren to help them fetch water,” Maka said.
“I don’t think the authorities know how much we suffer in this camp because of the water shortage. We, like every living thing, need water to survive. The government must give us some water. We are begging them for help.”
Bukar Lawan said: “I just came back from hustling for business to get money to feed my family and I see that there is no water in the house. I will rest for a short while and then I will go out and look for some water.
“Before, we use to get enough water but now, I don’t know why, we are struggling to find water. People stand in long queues, sometimes for four or five days in this scorching weather, before they can get some water to drink, let alone for taking a bath or washing clothes.
“Some will buy water outside the camp at higher price. We use to buy one gallon [4.5 litres] of water for ₦40 naira. For those who don’t have money, they will go out early in the morning with their wheelbarrows and jerrycans to fetch water at remote areas, such as Musari and Dubai.”
Lawan said the Borno State government needed to take all the necessary measures to tackle the root causes of the water scarcity issue to address the plight of IDPs in Gubio camp by supplying adequate water. “This is in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Number six says governments and non-governmental organisations worldwide must ensure the provision of ‘adequate and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation for all’.”
Shettima Lawan Monguno
