Egypt water crisis prompting street protests

Egypt is struggling with a new wave of alarming water crisis, as popular anger at poor infrastructure and frequent water cuts turns into growing street protests in the North African country.

The impoverished southern parts of the mostly arid country is particularly the scene of desperate shortages, including one of drinking water, which might last for days, the Middle East Eye reported Monday.

The water crisis has made the holy fasting month of Ramadan a hard time since many Egyptians can hardly secure enough water to quench their thirst after breaking their fasting in the high temperatures, it said.

The water crisis is by no means limited to the south. In recent days, people in different parts of the northern provinces have been cutting off roads and highways to express their outrage at the status quo and to draw attention to their plight.

Dozens of people from eight villages of the northeastern province of Dakahlia staged a demonstration on Saturday in front of the city hall building in the provincial capital, Mansoura, to protest against the severe lack of drinking water for 15 days.

They said they had suffered an acute shortage of drinking water during the summer for the previous eight years, adding that all promises given by authorities so far to resolve the problem had remained unfulfilled.

“Our children are going to die from thirst, but the government does not care,” one protester said.

“We have complained to all those responsible but to no avail,” said another, adding, “All the head of the water company told us was that he did not have a solution for us except the water tankers."

But the water tankers do not come regularly and if they come people fight with each other, the protester said. "I am afraid people would kill each other for a jerry can of water.”

Egyptian media recently reported that armed men had seized a government-owned water tanker in the provincial capital of the restive North Sinai Province, al-Arish.

Egypt has been suffering from acute water scarcity in recent years. Critics put the blame mainly on uneven water distribution, the misuse of water resources and inefficient irrigation techniques.

They say, for example, that open canals that used to irrigate crops and are branched off from the Nile River are a major cause of the crisis as up to three billion cubic meters of water, almost equivalent to 1.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools, is lost through evaporation in scorching heat.

More than 80 percent of the country’s fresh water is used in the agricultural sector to feed the increasing population.

The water crisis in Egypt is also deteriorating as a result of a move by Ethiopia — one of the eleven countries that use water from the Nile — to construct a large dam on its section of the river.

According to a UN estimate, Egypt could become officially water-scarce as early as 2025.

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