A daily struggle to fetch water

A daily struggle to fetch water

Millions of Yemenis are struggling to receive water and there is no regular access to water in their homes; it’s a difficult task to get water from public faucets. And a political uprising made Yemen’s water issue drop to the bottom of the top priorities for the reconciliation government, aid workers and government employees. This issue is more dangerous than any political one. As the depletion of Sana’a’s basin approaches, the government has adopted a string of procedures as preparation to face this danger. So a report released by the Ministry of Water and Environment found that random digging is a major factor threatening underground water; the number of wells dug randomly in Sana'a governorate amounted to 13,256 compared with 9,200 wells in 1990. And some said the scarcity and shortage of water in Yemen refers to the inadequacy of rainfall. Among the procedures taken are stoppage of random digging and the use of irrigation technology, in addition to taking advantage of sanitation water and rainwater. A specialist in Sana'a with the Community Livelihood Project, a program to improve water access funded by the US aid agency US Aid, warned that as water supply diminishes, tensions will rise: "Water is and will be the reason for powerful conflicts in the future. " Lack of access to improved water supply has been responsible for the spread of water-borne diseases on a scale not witnessed in decades, according to Unicef's Madieh. Water and sanitation are chronic problems in Yemen, where, on average, each Yemeni has access to only 140 cubic meters of water per year for all uses – the Middle East average is about 1,000m³ a person annually. In recent years, the government had taken strides to improve water access in Yemen, but the political turbulence that arose from last year's uprising has pushed water down the new government's list of priorities, according to aid workers and a government employee.