Water crisis shakes war-torn Sudan as temperatures rise

“Since the war began, two of my children have walked 14 kilometers every day to fetch water for the family,” says Issa, a father of seven from North Darfur state.

In the scorching sun and at temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius, Issa’s family – like 65,000 other residents of the Sortoni refugee camp – suffers under the burden of the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

When the first shots were fired over a year ago, most foreign aid organizations were able to stop their work – including the one that ran Sortoni’s local water station. The residents were left to fend for themselves.

Despite its numerous water sources, including the mighty Nile, the country as a whole is not without water shortages.

Even before the war, according to the United Nations, a quarter of the population had to walk more than 50 minutes to fetch water.

From the deserts of western Darfur to the fertile Nile Valley to the Red Sea coast, a water crisis has now hit 48 million war-weary Sudanese, who are already facing “the greatest humanitarian crisis on earth.”

No fuel, no water

About 110 kilometers east of Sortoni, deadly clashes are taking place in the RSF-besieged capital of El-Fasher in northern Darfur. The water supply of more than 800,000 civilians is at risk.

Roughly outside the city, fighting over the Golo water reservoir threatens to “cut off around 270,000 people from a safe and adequate water supply,” warned the UN children’s agency UNICEF.

Access to water and other scarce resources has long been a source of conflict in Sudan.

“The water is there, but it is more than 60 metres deep, deeper than a hand pump could reach,” said a European diplomat with many years of experience in the Sudanese water sector.

“If the RSF does not allow the fuel supply, the water stations will stop operating,” he said AFPand asked for anonymity because the diplomat was not authorized to speak to the media.

“For a large part of the population there will simply be no water.”

Already, people in the nearby village of Shaqra, where 40,000 people have sought shelter, are “standing in 300-meter-long lines to get drinking water,” says Adam Rijal, spokesman for the civilian-led General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur.

Dirty water

Sudan is particularly affected by climate change and “this is most clearly noticeable in the increase in temperatures and the intensity of precipitation,” said the diplomat.

Temperatures are expected to continue rising this summer until the rainy season begins in August, bringing torrential floods that kill dozens of people each year.

The capital Khartoum lies at the legendary confluence of the Blue and White Nile – and yet the population suffers from thirst.

The Soba water station, which supplies water to much of the capital, “has been out of service since the war began,” said a volunteer with the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups coordinating war aid.

People have since been buying untreated “water from animal-drawn carts that they can barely afford and that exposes them to disease,” he said. AFPand asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Entire neighborhoods in northern Khartoum “have been without drinking water for a year,” said another volunteer from the area who asked to be identified only by his first name, Salah.

“People wanted to stay in their homes despite the fighting, but without water they could not survive,” Salah said.

Dried out and driven away

Hundreds of thousands have fled the fighting to the east, many to the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea. There is a “huge water problem” there that will “get even worse in the summer months,” fears local resident al-Sadek Hussein.

The city relies on only an inadequate reservoir for its water supply.

Here too, citizens rely on horse and donkey carts to deliver water, using “tools that need to be monitored and controlled to prevent contamination,” said health expert Taha Taher. AFP.

“But with all the displacement, of course that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the Ministry of Health registered nearly 11,000 cases of cholera – a disease endemic in Sudan, “but not to this extent” where it now occurs “all year round,” the European diplomat said.

The outbreak occurred while most hospitals in Sudan were closed and the United States warned on Friday that without urgent action, a famine of historic proportions could occur around the world.

“Health care has collapsed, people are drinking dirty water, they are starving and will become even more hungry, which will cost many, many more people their lives,” the diplomat said.

Child malnutrition in Sudan reaches “emergency level”

In addition, three UN organizations have now warned of a “significant deterioration” in the nutritional situation of children and mothers in Sudan and called for “urgent action”.

“The lives of children in Sudan are at stake and urgent action is needed to protect an entire generation from malnutrition, disease and death,” the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement.

“The ongoing hostilities are exacerbating the root causes of child malnutrition,” the organizations said.

“These include a lack of access to nutritious food, clean drinking water and sanitation, as well as an increased risk of disease,” they added.

“Sudan is at increasing risk of conflict-induced famine, which will have catastrophic consequences, including loss of life, particularly among young children.”

The aid agencies said the conflict had “also had a serious impact on the delivery of humanitarian aid, leaving countless women and children without access to essential food and nutrients… (while) increasing violence and bureaucratic procedures make access to conflict areas more difficult.”

Child malnutrition in Sudan has reached “worrying levels,” the statement said.

In Central Darfur, acute malnutrition among children under five is estimated at 15.6 percent, while in the Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur state, the figure is almost 30 percent.

“We need immediate and safe access to deliver the humanitarian assistance they so desperately need,” said WFP chief Cindy McCain.

“Millions of lives are at stake and the international community must act now or we risk losing an entire generation of children,” she said.

The agencies warned: “The window of opportunity to avert the worst is closing rapidly.”