Chad's desert east faces 'dire need' for access to water

In Chad's far-flung east, a "dire need" for water blights lives and fuels deadly violence over access to wells in an impoverished and sweltering desert region.

Women in colourful veils carrying jerrycans of water back from the well are a common sight along reddish dirt tracks in the blazing sun.

Even in the country's second biggest city, Abeche, the taps often run dry.

Rapid urban development and a growing population, estimated by local officials to be more than 500,000 inhabitants, have accentuated the problem.

Some areas of the eastern city have a water distribution system -- but it can be patchy.

"At certain times of day, no water comes out of the tap; the flow only returns late at night," Issa Mahamat, a trader, said.

People in other parts of Abeche aren't so lucky.

"We still keep buying water; we aren't familiar with tap water yet," resident Kadidja told AFP.

Less than 10 percent of Chadian households had access to safe, continuously running water in 2024, according to the United Nations.

Lacking infrastructure

Chad, a largely semi-desert country grappling with major threats from climate change, began producing oil in 2003 but remains deeply poor, with more than 70 percent of the population living in rural areas.

A lack of infrastructure to keep pace with the swelling population has forced authorities into action.

In 2019, the government launched a project in Biteha, 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Abeche, where several boreholes have tapped into the groundwater to supply two water towers in the city.

"The population is in dire need of water. The Biteha 2 project will increase production and thus meet households' needs," project manager Bakhit Diki Barkai said.

"Even if the shortage problem has not been completely resolved, the situation is under control," he added.

Barkai said the water shortage used to get worse during heatwaves but the situation had improved in the last three years.

"By the end of the year, we'll reach our goal of producing 25,000 cubic metres and there will no longer be any talk of shortages in Abeche," he declared.

Ahmed Youssouf, who lives in the Chiteye neighbourhood, is among those to have benefited after several years without drinking water.

"Thankfully, with the new water tower installed in our neighbourhood, we're now relieved and the water is flowing freely," he said.

However, the new infrastructure is not enough to cover everyone.

In some of Abeche's outlying neighbourhoods and surrounding rural areas, many still lack access to water and are forced to fetch it themselves, sometimes having to travel far from home.

Poverty, conflicts

Nour Saleh Haggar, secretary-general in the Chadian ministry of water and energy, acknowledged much more was needed.

"We must invest more in drinking water and storage infrastructure, such as dams and spreading weirs, to meet the needs of livestock, the population and agriculture," Haggar said.

Water access inequality between urban and rural areas remains significant and disputes over the sharing of resources can turn deadly.

President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno recently outlined what was at stake at an international forum on water.

"When the water recedes or runs short, poverty advances by leaps and bounds, people and livestock suffer and conflicts multiply," he told the July 15 gathering in the capital N'Djamena.

According to the UN, Chad, a vast, landlocked country of 19 million people lying at the crossroads of north and central Africa, is among the most vulnerable countries in Africa to climate change.

Conflicts between farmers and nomadic Arab herders over land, cattle and access to water have plagued the east of the country for several years.

In April, a dispute in Wadi Fira province over a water well descended into violent clashes, leaving 42 people dead.

Six months earlier, a similar dispute killed 33 people in central Hadjer-Lamis province.

NGOs regularly warn of the urgent need for investment in infrastructure for producing and distributing drinking water across the country, especially in rural parts.