Author: djadmin

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — South Africans living in the Eastern Cape are counting down to “Day Zero” when the taps in the Nelson Mandela Bay area will run dry. Experts say climate change induced drought has left reservoirs almost empty, while municipal mismanagement has city authorities scrambling to plug more than 3,000 leaking water pipes.

Sixty-eight-year-old grandma of five Virginia Kima lives in KwaNobuhle, a poor township in a region named after South Africa’s greatest hero and first Black president, Nelson Mandela Bay.

But life is hard these days, she said.

“Sometimes we stay about two or three days without water,” she said. “When there’s no water we do go to other areas and fetch water.”

Kima told VOA when the taps run dry, she walks 25 minutes to a school to fill bottles.

The bay area is suffering a critical water shortage. Authorities said regional dam water storage is at about 11 percent of capacity and could be about to get a lot worse.

At the current rate of use, two major reservoirs could run out completely in a matter of days. If that happens, 40 percent of the city of Gqeberha, with a population of about a million people, would be affected.

Luvuyo Bangazi, spokesman for the government committee dealing with the shortage, told VOA that authorities are racing to prevent “Day Zero,” when they run out of water.

“With regards to the exact date of Day Zero, you know we really cannot have such a date in the calendar because there are lots of moving parts,” he said. “We are doing everything we can in our power to avoid taps running dry.”

Bangazi said there are several reasons for the low water levels – both natural and man-made.

“We haven’t had good rains for more than seven years and we’ve had a sharp increase in water consumption from across sectors, be it residential, business, or other,” he said. “So, compounding that with obviously ailing infrastructure that leads to severe water leaks … almost 25-30% of our water [is] being lost due to water leaks caused by failing infrastructure.”

More than 3,000 leaks have been reported to city authorities, who say teams are scrambling to fix them.

Bangazi said the community also needs to cut back on water consumption, which he says is 60 million liters more per day than it should be for the size of population.

Meanwhile, authorities are setting up communal water points and aid workers are drilling boreholes for water wells.

Mary Galvin, an associate professor in development studies at the University of Johannesburg, said the water shortage shows the urgent need to combat climate change.

“Reaching Day Zero is an example, or is an expression, of a climate crisis which is here to stay — with higher temperatures, greater intensity of weather events, including drought and flood. So this is yet another manifestation that we see across the country and across Africa and across the world.”

Galvin noted that there is also an issue of water inequality in South Africa.

While wealthier residents of Nelson Mandela Bay can dig their own boreholes and buy storage tanks, the poor here, like Grandma Kima, must walk to find water.

The water shortage in Nelson Mandela Bay comes just a few years after the major South African tourist city of Cape Town narrowly averted its own Day Zero.

Source: Voice of America

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Cameron has deployed hundreds of troops along its border with Nigeria after attacks by Boko Haram militants forced more than 40,000 villagers over the past two months to flee the area. Cameroon’s defense minister is visiting the border to assess the security situation and assure villagers that it is safe to return home.

Cameroon’s military reports that Boko Haram incursions in Mayo Tsanaga, an administrative unit on its northern border with Nigeria, have increased drastically since April.

Each day, armed members of the Nigerian terror group cross over to Cameroon, attack villages and steal cattle and food, the military reports.

Cameroon’s defense minister, Joseph Beti Assomo, said Thursday President Paul Biya asked him to lead a delegation of top military officials to the border. Assomo, whose delegation was in Mokollo district where Mayo Tsanaga is located, says several hundred troops have been deployed to protect civilians and their goods.

He said that self-protection groups must cooperate with the army.

Assomo says all militias must henceforth be registered and controlled by local government officials and Cameroon military. He says militia group members should be people of unquestionable integrity. Assomo says government troops and local officials note that militias have been infiltrated by Boko Haram terrorists and adds that the military will energetically fight terrorists and bring back civilians trapped along the border with Nigeria.

Ousman Aliou is from Duvan, a village on the border with Nigeria. He says except for a few elderly persons, almost everybody has escaped from Duvan. He spoke via a messaging app from Mokollo.

“Duvan has got 10,000 population and when I went there last week, I saw only 15 people in Duvan,” Aliou said. “So, I am asking Mr. Minister to do something for us please. Come and help us. Our people are sleeping on the mountain.”

In May, villagers along Cameroon’s northern border with Chad and Nigeria organized daily protests in front of government offices demanding the military protect them.

Vohod Deguime is mayor of the Mokollo district. He says if the military had responded more quickly to the villagers’ plea, civilians would have been spared from fleeing their homes.

He says the situation is getting worse as the days go by. He says several dozen villages have been destroyed over three weeks by Boko Haram, and food and cattle stolen. Deguime says more than 30,000 of the 40,000 Cameroonians who have escaped from their villages are hiding in bushes on the border with Nigeria.

Deguime said some of the fleeing villagers are finding refuge in host communities in safer border localities.

Local media reports that Cameroon recently withdrew some of its troops from the northern border with Nigeria and Chad and redeployed them to fight separatist rebels in the west of the country. Cameroon’s military dismiss the claims and say troops are always on standby to defend civilians when the need arises.

Source: Voice of America