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An urban hell
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| Picture: WaterAid/Alex Macro |
Rapid expansion in
Burkina Faso's cities
has resulted in
thousands living in
squatter settlements
without water or sanitation. In the
second of three articles written
after a visit to the country,
Lauren Pyrah explains how
people cope in the West African
country's slums
AN animal carcass covered in flies floats
in filthy slime-filled water in a concrete
canal. On closer inspection, mosquito
eggs, rubbish and faeces are clearly visible
in the murky pool, but this does not
seem to put off the children busy collecting water.
The air is thick with red dust and an unidentifiable
acrid smell which burns the back of the throat.
It's hard to believe this stream - which a British
water company would no doubt struggle to make
safe - is destined for the city's mains cleaning plant.
Welcome to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital
city.
Just a few streets away, the city centre shows all
the indications of development, with tarmac roads
and high-rise buildings alongside hotels, shops,
bars and restaurants. But decreasing rainfall and
persistent droughts have forced the rural poor, who
traditionally rely on farming for a living, to move
to the cities in search of work.
This mass migration has seen urban communities
mushroom unchecked, resulting in hastily
erected makeshift hovels with no proper infrastructure
sitting side by side with the smart brickand-
mortar walled houses of the better off.
Many of the urban poor are forced to walk several
kilometres to get clean water and the majority
do not have access to proper sanitation and are
forced to defecate in the streets.
These cataclysmic problems have prompted WaterAid
to set up an urban programme for Burkina
Faso.
Although in its infancy, the project has already
helped several communities build stand-pipes,
which provide people with safe drinking water for
a nominal fee. The stand-pipes are run by a committee
drawn from men and women within the community,
who reinvest profits into more stand-pipes.
WaterAid also builds latrines for individuals on
a means-tested basis, as well as helping out city
schools.
KALIKE Linkone, headteacher at one of Ouagadougou's
schools, told us that before WaterAid
helped them build latrines, the
school's 1,000 children were forced to openly defecate
in the school yard. Since WaterAid's intervention,
the children also have sanitation lessons as
part of the curriculum, but the school has other
problems.
"Children used to defecate in the surrounding
area," Kalike told us. "Now, the lack of a fence
means some of the surrounding population and animals
are also defecating here. We try to clean up,
but this is difficult.
"The latrines were built last year. The difference
has been very great. There has been a behavoural
change - we now have an understanding that the
use of latrines and hand-washing are very important."
But driving around Ouagadougou's slums, it is
clear that WaterAid's city programme has a long
way to go. A 30-ft-high steaming rubbish dump towers
over a pool of stagnant water. Children dressed
in rags pick through the mound, hoping to find anything
of use. Excrement encircles the murky water,
yet people still collect it.
Although urban areas fare slightly better than
their rural counterparts on sanitation and water
coverage, the situation is still dire, with only one in
seven people having access to sanitation and 74 percent
having access to water.
Particularly problematic are what are described
as "semi-urban" areas - large, quickly expanding
villages on the outskirts of cities, for which neither
rural nor urban councils are willing to take responsibility.
As a result, people living there - who
can number thousands in one settlement - are left
to fend for themselves.
When we arrive in Zongo, on the outskirts of Ouagadougou,
women are gathered around a well, chatting,
joking and filling containers with cloudy-looking
water. Just a few minutes earlier, we had seen
people defecating nearby.
Word of our arrival clearly spreads fast. Shortly
after we turn up, 34-year-old Samuel Ouedraogo,
who is one of the village chiefs, has made his way
over to see us. He told us of the problems facing the
10,000-strong community.
"When people start to unite to decide to live somewhere,
this grows and then they need a structure,
I am responsible for this. I am the ears of the chief
of the village. The people who aren't natives of the
village go through me and I can help them reach
the chief. You can see the colour of the water but
we don't have a choice. People are going to the toilet
and drinking the same water. We know this
water is not very good for us.
"When we only have the one well we do not have
enough water. During the rainy season, both wells
are full but we can only reach one. This causes tension
and the women sometimes fight. Sometimes
the women who grow vegetables have their own
small private wells and some of the other women
try to use these too - this also causes tension."
His colleague Nikiema Antoine, another village
chief, agrees: "We love our wives a lot but sometimes
when they bring back the water, we are
ashamed. When we see the water, our thirst goes."
One of the women at the well, Tapsoba Aminata,
tells us she used to have seven children but three
have died from disease - two from smallpox and one
from meningitis. She collects 80 litres of water
every day, which used to take her four trips, but now
her husband has bought her a cart, it only takes
one.
"I don't have any choice but to drink this water,
I know it's bad to drink. I haven't had any illnesses,
but sometimes the children get sick. I wish a better
future for my children. I wish for them to be more
mindful, to get an education, and get a good job to
take care of me and my husband when we get old.
"I don't want my children to suffer like I have. I
hope my daughter just hears about my suffering
and doesn't have to live it for herself."
BURKINA FASO
Population: 12.4 million
Infant mortality: One in five
Life expectancy: 47 years
Water supply coverage: 51 per cent
Sanitation coverage: 12 per cent
Below poverty line: 45.2 per cent
HOW YOU CAN HELP
A NORTH-EAST water company has raised more
than £2.5m for WaterAid in the past ten years.
Northumbrian Water's WaterAid committee
announced the figure following The Northern
Echo's trip to Burkina Faso, where one of the
charity's newest programmes is underway.
As well as organising fundraising events
throughout the year, an annual appeal form is sent
out to customers with their water bill, which raises
between £25,000 and £30,000 and saves about
1,700 lives every year.
The water company's communications team
leader, Cara Hall, visited Burkina Faso with The
Northern Echo. Cara, who was born in Zimbabwe,
said: "I am very, very proud that Northumbrian
Water works with WaterAid.
"I think WaterAid are doing a fantastic job in
giving people the basic human rights of clean
water and sanitation - things which I and other
people in the North-East take for granted."
* To donate, fill in the form sent by Northumbrian
Water with your bill, call WaterAid's hotline on
0845-767-5000 or log on to www.wateraid.org.uk
9:40am Tuesday 25th March 2008
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