WFP highlights water scarcity

Water scarcity remained a serious problem in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, despite late efforts to rehabilitate wells and water resources, with most open, hand-dug wells having dried up, WFP reported on Friday in its weekly emergency update.
On average, household members travelled eight hours a day to fetch water, and the difficulties involved in providing sufficient water for livestock had resulted in livestock owners either selling or moving their animals, it added. “There is an increasing movement of people in search of food and water, especially in Darfur and Kordofan,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported last week.

Targeted WFP food distributions which started in May in Northern Darfur and Kordofan regions had had a rapid effect on the cereal market, with prices having dropped from 7,500 dinars (about US $29.3) to 6,000 dinars (about $23.4) in Darfur, the WFP report stated. The agency had succeeded in getting 90 mt of relief food into Buram (10.51N 25.09E), southern Darfur, by road, and food distributions were scheduled to resume there on Sunday, targeting 4,250 internally displaced people (IDPs) in three schools, according to officials.

There were currently 25,000 or more people displaced by fighting in the Western Bahr al-Ghazal areas of Raga and Wau heading towards Ed Daein (Al-Duwaym: 14.00N 32.19E), and another 9,000 heading Kafia Kingi and Buram, according to statistics cited in an alert from Action by Churches Together (ACT) on Friday. ACT wanted to assist the transport of the most vulnerable to safe places, as well as to help with food, according to the alert. Transportation of the displaced, shelter and food were the most urgent humanitarian needs, it said. Relief agencies needed to devote increased effort to rehabilitating water sources, restoring some measure of food self-sufficiency through seed distributions, and health interventions - especially those related to communicable and water-borne diseases - in Darfur, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in an operations update last week.