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On November 9, 2022, Awa Sawadogo pushes her 200 liter tank in Ouahigouya in northern Burkina Faso. In order to secure the needs of her family, she has to do this duty morning and evening. SWEET SOPHIE
As soon as the sun rises over Ouahigouya, the circle of women around the fountains of this city in northern Burkina Faso comes to life. Some wait for the gurgling of the empty pipes, others hurry ahead with their plastic canisters before the first drops of water. We juggle between the whistle and her baby behind her. You hang a few full cans on your bike or stack them in a cart, which you still have to carry home at arm’s length.
Walk, fill, push. Every day the same wobbly ballet. In Ouahigouya, the capital of the North Region, 180 km from the capital, the “water work” reserved for women and children has become an ordeal. Adding to the drought is the influx of displaced people fleeing violence in competition for already scarce resources. In a few years, the city’s population doubled with the arrival of more than 140,000 refugees. In Burkina Faso, where almost 40% of the territory is beyond the control of the authorities, jihadist groups are increasingly using Durst to besiege villages and displace people.
strategies
11:00 a.m. Under the dry and dusty breath of the harmattan, Awa Sawadogo is hauling a large metal barrel on a cart with tires in Sector 1 of Ouahigouya. She has only a few yards to walk to the fountain in her neighborhood, but she is third tour of the day. In the ocher mud courtyard of his rented house, the water tap connected to the public distribution network never worked.
“No choice,” replies this 40-year-old woman, trying to forget her aching back and sore wrist from an old fracture. she nineteen are at home and the reserves are running out fast. She had to flee on foot from Barga, a village further north, after a terrorist attack a year ago. Since her husband’s other wife stays at home because she too scared to go out. He wanders around town looking for a job. When she’s not busy finding water, Awa Sawadogo sells spice bags on the street to be able to buy her water barrels for 150 CFA francs (0.20 euros) for 200 liters and what for meals. In Barga, water from the well in front of his yard was free. The former farmer never lacked enough to irrigate her millet fields. In the city, “the land is too poor to cultivate,” she regrets.
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Ouahigouya is thirsty. To push the limits and avoid hour-long queues, women employ strategies. Some leave their containers at night to reserve their spot before returning at dawn. The coming and going goes on until the evening, interferes with working hours and with the children’s homework. Here, the poorest households only have an average of 7 liters of water per day per person, while the international standard recommends at least 15 liters of water in emergency situations.
In view of the growing demand, the already ailing public network is saturated and wears out quickly. The National Office for Water and Sanitation (ONEA), which is in charge of city distribution, is required to alternate delivery days by sector. “It is crucial to maintain good pressure in the terminals to avoid queues. But the more we pump, the more the water table drops and the flow decreases,” explains Thierry Dikoume, water specialist at the NGO Solidarités International, which carries out infrastructure rehabilitation and repair work in the region. In Ouahigouya, one of the region’s last refuges, The influx of displaced people is so great that newcomers are now being forced to settle in parts of the city that are not connected to drinking water and electricity networks.
“Hours of waiting at the pump”
In this semi-arid region that has been hit hard by the climate crisis, drought is eating away at the land. Hottest months, average temperatures exceed 40°C and the water reservoirs dry up. A few kilometers from Ouahigouya, the Goinré Dam, the city’s main source of supply, remained dry from February to June until the onset of the first rains.
“Rainfall was so low in 2021 that the level of the dam was 40% lower than at the end of the previous season,” explains Alphonse Sandwidi, technician at the Regional Water and Wastewater Directorate North. The practice of vegetable growing creates additional pressure on the reserves evaporating due to the high temperatures. And soil erosion is contributing to the silting up of the dam.
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Increasingly, groundwater is being pumped away to meet demand, endangering groundwater that is already contaminated in places with arsenic used in neighboring quarries. Private wells, rarely monitored, are proliferating. A year ago, merchant Salifou Ganame decided to convert his grain storage facility into a standpipe to relieve his family and neighborhood. It was no longer possible, “we had to wait for hours at the pump, which often ended in arguments,” he reports, saying that he had invested “several million francs” of his savings to drill 85 m deep in his yard .
In northern Burkina Faso, many villages have been emptied due to jihadist attacks. Here, abandoned houses, November 11, 2022. SOPHIE DOUCE
Anger grows at the chronic shortage. Every year groups of women demonstrate with empty cans in their hands. “Since 2015 we have been turning to the authorities, the population feels abandoned,” says Tidani Savadogo, spokesman for Sauvons le Yatenga, a movement founded to denounce the general deterioration in living conditions.
ghost town
In this landlocked Sahel country, more than 2.5 million people, or one in ten Burkinabé, suffer from water shortages. Lack of access to clean water is fueling tensions between displaced people and host communities, and conflicts between pastoralists and farmers. Armed groups intensify targeted attacks on hydraulic installations. Destruction of generators and pumps, poisoning of water with fuel or animal carcasses… From January to October, 58 water points in the country and important infrastructure supplying communities were sabotaged, affecting more than 830,000 people, according to data from humanitarian actors.
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Helicopters parade in the sky of Ouahigouya. Many villages in the region have come under the control of the jihadists. It has become too dangerous for government agencies to take to the streets to maintain sites. In inland areas, the NGO Solidarités International tries to airlift repair kits and filters to clean unsanitary water. Cases of waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, a major cause of infant mortality, are increasing.
The major connection project to the Guitti Dam, 60 km away, is the authorities’ “last hope” to supply the city and its surrounding villages for years to come. But due to uncertainty, the works funded by the French Development Agency (AFD), which should end in 2023, have still not started. Meanwhile, Barga, the village of Awa Sawadogo, has become a ghost town.