Queuing at dawn as Comoros taps run dry

Like many residents of the capital of the Comoros, 86-year-old Ben Joma does not bother to turn off the taps at his home.

They only provide water roughly every three weeks and, even then, it is just a thin trickle that lasts about an hour, he told AFP.

Whenever anyone in Zilimadjou, his neighbourhood of Moroni, gets a decent flow from a tap, "We call each other to let everyone know so we can fill all our containers," the retired printer said.

The lack of piped water blighting the city of 150,000 people has many causes -- leaks, air pockets, an undersized network and insufficient electricity to power the main pumping station.

"It's a real pain," said Joma, who had just received a delivery of 1,000 litres (265 gallons) of water for the equivalent of roughly $28.

The cost is steep in the Indian Ocean country, where 45 percent of the population of 870,000 live below the poverty line of $100 a month, according to the National Institute of Statistics.

Joma's regular water supplier started delivering to private households three years ago.

Every night between midnight and 2:00 am, Chaher Omar parks his minibus in a queue of tankers, buses and motorbikes waiting to fill up at the Vouvouni pumping station which supplies Moroni, a few kilometres (miles) away.

"There are days when I leave without having filled my jerrycans and my 1,000-litre tank," said the 45-year-old with a weathered face.

"Demand is very high because it's the dry season," he explained.

'Better than France'

In the south of Moroni, 38-year-old Kaouthara Bouchrane wakes up well before dawn every day to queue at one of the few communal water points still in service in her neighbourhood, hoping to fill her yellow jerrycans for free.

Residents either queue at water pumps or pay for private deliveries. By Ibrahim YOUSSOUF (AFP)

The mother of four is a customer of national water distribution company Sonede but her taps have been dry for months.

"If I don't get water at this pump, I'm forced to buy it," she said.

With the price of one jerrycan rising to 50 cents, "How are we supposed to manage?" she asked.

Nearby, a woman waiting her turn at another pump quipped: "Life in the Comoros is fine. We live better than in France."

She was parroting a comment by President Azali Assoumani during an interview in May with France 24, a broadcaster from the former colonial power.

Leaks and airlocks

Part of the problem is that the Vouvouni pumping station was designed in the late 1970s when the population of Moroni was less than a quarter of what it is today, said Bakri El Yahya.

Because of insufficient electricity supply, the station only operates for about 10 hours a day, said the representative of the Progeau programme.

Progeau works with the government to improve access to water and has received 6.5 million euros ($740,000) in funding from the French overseas development agency.

"Added to that is the age of the network, which has numerous leaks," he said.

"Half the water that is pumped out goes back into the ground because it doesn't reach the customer."

Moroni's water network was built when its population was a quarter of today's size. By Ibrahim YOUSSOUF (AFP)

Sonede said repair work was being carried out, for example to remove airlocks blocking circulation.

And a major 17.5-million-euro World Bank-funded project was due to start within four years to drill new boreholes, revamp the entire Moroni network and build two large reservoirs, said technical director Abdillah Mze Ali.

Until then, Bouchrane will continue to rise before dawn to queue at the pump while wealthier residents fork out large sums of cash for deliveries.