Africa is already suffering from the food crisis, and now they are facing issues of water shortage, and they need to spend more on the water than food.
Everyone is searching for water in the island country, which is nearly 400 kilometres far from the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean.
According to Aid agencies, cars and carts, loaded with empty containers, clog narrow roads crisscrossing the world’s fourth-largest island, people sometimes walk for days before hitting a water puddle. And when they do, it is another war to harvest a few litres as hundreds gather for the same reservoir.
In five of the past six years, Madagascar has reported deficit rainy seasons severely. In the past two years, rainfall has reduced by 40 per cent — the lowest in thirty years. Since last year November, the country’s public sector water company Jirama has performed more than 30 cloud seeding operations.
There was a collapse of agriculture which gave employment to nearly 80 percent of the country and almost 1.3 million of the country population surviving on food aid; the World Food Programme has called this the “first famine”, and the reason for this is global warming.
But still, for the African people, hunger is a secondary concern; water is their first concern now.
According to ‘Herve Leziany’, a photojournalist who lives in Ambohibao Antehiroka, the western suburbs of the capital city Antananarivo, “I stay awake till late at night to collect water from the fountain which is located in nearest my home.”
He spends hours near the fountain past midnight as water trickles out from 11 pm to 2.00 am. In Ikianja of Ambohimangakely locality, in the eastern suburbs of Antananarivo, some wake up at 1-2 am to bring water at the only community-managed well in the swamp decline.
According to Fetra R, a resident of the village, the stock is not at all sufficient for all. If you are late, you have to wait for hours again to collect water; when the water level comes up again, then only you can take water, while it takes hours to replenish again.
People started doing business of this, one example of this is a 25-year-old, and his wife have been supplying water to local residents who are not covered by the services of Jirama, and she charged Ar300 (Rs 5.600 for delivering 20 litres of water, and recently they increase their prices by 66 percent and now charging 9.50 rupees.
She further said that they would start charging more if the problem continued.
