Water back on in Bamako after electric line sabotage
Water was back on in Bamako on Wednesday, following sabotage to an electrical supply line that left much of the Malian capital without power for several days.
With no electricity, tap water had been unavailable since Sunday, forcing residents to turn to solar-powered water boreholes.
"The water we could get from the neighbour's borehole, given the number of people queuing, was only enough for cooking and drinking", a resident of Bamako's Lafiabougou neighbourhood told AFP, expressing relief.
The electricity grid, however, still remains severely disrupted.
Mali's drinking water utility SOMAGEP told AFP it had "secured enough fuel" to get its systems running again.
"We've taken steps to ensure we aren't completely dependent on Energie du Mali (EDM). We are now 100 percent operational", it said.
The energy utility said in a statement Monday that electrical supply to some areas had been disrupted following an "incident on the power transmission network", without providing further detail.
SOMAGEP said the disruption was the result of "sabotage on the high-voltage line" supplying Bamako from the Manantali Dam on the border with Mauritania and Senegal.
The outages came as jihadists from Al-Qaeda-affiliated JNIM (the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims) have for months been imposing road blockades on key routes leading to Bamako, torching dozens of buses, cargo trucks and fuel tankers in an effort to strangle the economy.
An official from the Bamako District Hospital said patients had had to drink water from the facility's borehole, which was normally used for hygiene purposes only.
"With the taps dry for two days, what choice did we have? Not everyone can afford bottled water", an official from the hospital said.
"Fortunately, however, we advised everyone to add bleach, which spared us from further problems", the official added.
Mali has been grappling with a security crisis since 2012 by jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group and community-based criminal groups and separatists.
lar-str-els-bfm/pdw