Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water, Sanitation Jan -Feb 2014 Vol.10 No1 | Page 8

NEWS in brief

Around Africa

Councillor
A l u s i n e
Corade Conteh
of Ward 355 in
Constituency
99, also a
resident
of
Portee,
said
he was in
agreement
Teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone
with aggrieved
parents that one of the challenges the community faces is
acute water supply.

Somalia
50 Somalis dead from contaminated water

of several pressing issues in Somalia. The country is also
dealing with persistent violence, much of it linked to the
militant group Al-Shabaab.
It was not immediately clear how the water that led to the
recent deaths got contaminated, including whether anyone
or any group might be responsible.

South Africa
Primary School Kids Sent Home Because of Lack of
Toilets and Sewage Smell
It is only 10am on a Wednesday morning and A.C.J. Phakade
primary school students in Nomzamo township (near
Strand in Cape Town) are already walking home or waiting
for shuttles to fetch them.

The reasons is that their teachers are holding what they are
calling a go-slow. The go-slow started on Tuesday because
At least 50 people have died in Somalia after drinking
of the shortage of toilets for students and teachers, as well
contaminated water from a well in northern Mogadishu, an
as a broken sewage system that has left an overpowering
official in that East African country said last December 12.
stench in the classrooms, and unfinished construction that
Osman Mohamed, the deputy commissioner for Somalia’s started in 2011.
Yaqshid district said about the deaths among those
who drank from the newly constructed well. More
than 150 people who had water from that well were
recently hospitalized.
Hawo Abdi, a mother of four reported that her
8-year-old child is among those who died after
drinking the contaminated water.
While access to drinkable water has improved in
recent years, it still remains a major and sometimes
deadly problem in some places.
That’s especially true in parts of Africa, and even
more so in Somalia, which has some of the lowest
rates of water coverage in the world.
The United Nations rep