As temperatures soar, war-torn Sudan faces water crisis

PORT SUDAN – War, climate change and man-made resource shortages have plunged Sudan – a country already facing a series of disasters – into a water crisis.

“My two children have to walk 14 kilometres (9 miles) every day to get water for their family since the war started,” Issa, a father of seven, told AFP in North Darfur state.

Under a blazing sun, with temperatures climbing to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), Issa’s family – along with 65,000 other residents of Soltoni displacement camp – are bearing the brunt of the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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When the first shots were fired more than a year ago, most foreign aid groups, including those operating the local water station in Sortony, were unable to continue their work, leaving residents to fend for themselves.

Although the country has numerous water sources, including the Nile River, the country is no stranger to water scarcity in general.

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

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Now, from the western desert of Darfur, to the fertile Nile Valley and all the way to the shores of the Red Sea, a water crisis has gripped 48 million war-torn Sudanese, who the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Friday were already facing “the greatest humanitarian crisis on Earth.”

No fuel, no water

About 110 km east of Soltoni, El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, was besieged by rapid security forces following deadly clashes, threatening the water supply of more than 800,000 civilians.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday that fighting in El Fasher had killed at least 226 people.

Outside the city, the fight over the Golo Dam “threatens to cut off a safe and adequate water supply for around 270,000 people,” UNICEF warned.

Access to water and other scarce resources has been a root cause of conflict in Sudan.

The UN Security Council on Thursday called for an end to the siege of El Fasher.

If the situation continues, hundreds of thousands of people who rely on groundwater in the region will be left without water.

“The water is there, but it’s more than 60 metres (66 yards) deep, deeper than a hand pump can take,” said a European diplomat with many years of experience in Sudan’s water sector.

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“If the Rapid Support Forces do not allow the fuel to come in, the water stations will stop working,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity as the diplomat was not authorized to speak to the media.

“For a large portion of the population, there is simply no water.”

In the nearby village of Shakla, where 40,000 people have sought shelter, “people are lining up in queues 300 metres long to get drinking water,” said Adam Rijjar, spokesman for the General Coordination Organisation for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur, a civil society-led body.

In pictures he sent to AFP, some women and children could be seen huddled in the shade of a lone acacia tree, while most people sweated in the blazing sun, waiting their turn.

Dirty water

The diplomat said Sudan was being severely affected by climate change, “most notably in the form of rising temperatures and increased rainfall intensity.”

Temperatures are expected to continue rising this summer before the rainy season arrives in August, bringing with it floods that kill dozens of people each year.

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The capital, Khartoum, sits at the confluence of the fabled Blue and White Niles – but its people suffer from drought and water shortages.

A volunteer with the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups coordinating wartime aid, said the Soba water station, which supplies much of the capital, had been “out of service since the beginning of the war”.

Since then, people have been buying untreated “water from animal-drawn carts, which they can barely afford and are susceptible to disease,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Entire neighbourhoods in northern Khartoum “have been without drinking water for a year”, another local volunteer, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Salah, told AFP.

“Even when there is fighting, people want to stay in their homes, but they can’t do that without water,” Salah said.

Drought and displacement

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled eastwards to escape the fighting, many heading for the Red Sea de facto capital of Port Sudan, which itself faces “serious water shortages” and which “will only get worse in the summer,” said Sadeq Hussein, a local resident.

The city relies on just one reservoir for its water supply, but the supply is insufficient.

Residents here also rely on horse and donkey carts to transport water, using “tools that need to be monitored and controlled to prevent contamination,” public health expert Taha Tahir told AFP.

“But of course that’s not going to happen because of the displacement,” he said.

The European diplomat said that between April 2023 and March 2024, the Ministry of Health recorded nearly 11,000 cases of cholera, an endemic disease in Sudan, “but unlike this time”, it has become a “year-round” epidemic.

The outbreak has shut most hospitals in Sudan and the United States warned on Friday it could trigger a historic global famine without urgent action.

“Health care has collapsed, people are drinking dirty water, they are hungry and will get hungrier, which will lead to more deaths,” the diplomat said.