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Making sure that armed-conflict victims have access to water and sanitary facilities
17-03-2008 Photo gallery
Photographs illustrating some of the projects carried out by the ICRC to ensure that victims of armed conflict or other violence have sufficient access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities.
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Amid armed conflict or other violence, access to water may be restricted, for example because infrastructure has been destroyed, massive displacement has taken place or the available water is situated in dangerous areas.
In 2007, over 14 million victims of armed conflict or other violence in 40 countries benefited from ICRC programmes providing access to water needed for drinking, domestic use, sanitation, livestock watering and crop irrigation.
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Almost 13,000 people displaced by post-election violence have sought refuge at the Eldoret showground, in the Rift Valley. To ensure that all of them have access to water, the ICRC installed several water tanks and tapstands.
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ne month after the end of the fierce fighting that devastated this Palestinian refugee camp, the ICRC began to restore access to drinking water. Two reservoirs, each with a capacity of 60 cubic metres, have already been renovated. Chlorination equipment has been set up for treating the water in four wells and a generator and pump have been installed at another one.
See also story: Lebanon: ICRC helps restore water, work and hope at Nahr el-Bared
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At the beginning of 2007 fighting in the eastern provinces of Sri Lanka forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and take refuge in Batticaloa district. In the camps for the displaced, the ICRC supplied drinking water and set up sanitary facilities.
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The ICRC supplies drinking water to the 120,000 displaced people living in Gereida camp and to the resident population in the nearby town.
In Darfur, the ICRC renovates water stations in camps for the displaced and along the migration routes used by nomadic communities; it also carries out repair and maintenance work and upgrades on the rural water points and urban systems that hundreds of thousands of people depend on for their drinking water.
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In 2007, over 3,000,000 people benefited directly from the ICRC’s repairs, renovations and upgrades of water storage and delivery systems in Iraq.
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Great progress has been made in restoring public infrastructure in Grozny and other large towns in Chechnya. However, the water and sanitation needs of the inhabitants of rural areas remain largely unmet. In 2007 the ICRC completed seven water-supply projects benefiting over 10,000 inhabitants of rural areas.
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In 2007, almost 200,000 detainees in 26 countries benefited from the ICRC’s efforts to ensure that they had access to drinking water and satisfactory sanitary and hygiene conditions.
In Afghanistan, the ICRC saw to it that 15 places of detention met minimum standards in terms of water supply and sanitation.
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Showers and toilets in the Bimbo women’s prison, where the inmates live with their children, were in urgent need of repair. The ICRC rebuilt these facilities and upgraded the drinking water and sewage disposal systems.
In the Central African Republic in 2007 the ICRC also improved sanitary conditions in three other prisons and upgraded urban and rural water supply systems, repaired water points, built or rebuilt latrines and supported the Central African Red Cross Society in its efforts to promote good hygiene.
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The living conditions of the detainees improved considerably thanks to the well. The guards and the local population also benefited. The ICRC supports the sanitation programmes run by the Nigerian Red Cross Society in several prisons in the country.
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When an epidemic of acute watery diarrhoea broke out in many parts of Ethiopia, the ICRC provided support for medical facilities fighting the disease. It set up water installations in several health-care centres, kept them supplied with water and delivered chlorination products to them. It also installed additional water tanks to deal with emergencies.
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The ICRC replaced the reservoir supplying water to the entire hospital, which had been damaged during the war.
In Afghanistan, the ICRC maintains the central infrastructure of Mirwais hospital and also of the hospitals in Jalalabad, Sheberghan and Mazar-i-Sharif. -
In this shantytown which is home to between 200,000 and 300,000 people, the ICRC renovated the water distribution system and the public latrines. It also supported local partners who saw to it that the water pipelines were scoured regularly and illegal dumping was cleaned up.
A programme to repair public fountains in the shantytown resulted in a sharp increase in the number of water sources available near dwellings. This had the added benefit of making women and children more secure whenever they carried water home from the fountains, as the distance was shorter.
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The ICRC has been working in Eritrea since 1991. It has sought to make sure that water is available to a population that has suffered the effects of numerous crises arising from internal conflict and the climate.
The ICRC has succeeded in maintaining access to water for human consumption and agriculture along migration routes and in villages. It has repaired and upgraded water points, sunk deeper boreholes and, in major crisis situations, trucked in water for direct distribution to the population.
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For the people who live in this dry area, water was already in scant supply before the arrival of almost 12,000 people fleeing inter-ethnic violence and a lack of security. This well, which provides water for the displaced and local populations, eases the burden on the host communities.
See also story: A lifeline of clean water
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Almost 1.5 million bags filled with drinking water were distributed in Iraq last year to displaced persons, to hospitals where the water supply was interrupted and in other emergency situations.
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