Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

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Lack of Potable Water Causes Serious Sickness

Dear Editor,
Today almost 70 percent of the urban population lives in inappropriate areas or in illegal settlements and extremely suffering from the lack of crude livelihood facilities. And thus, 95% lack access to suitable toilets. These people are those who have returned back from other neighboring countries, like Pakistan and Iran. They are mostly the people whose homes are completely occupied by the warlords and other criminal organized network groups. Therefore they are compiled to live under tents in this hot weather and on illegal territory. They don't only lack access to potable water but also don't have access to a healthcare centers or other available hospitals and clinics where they can't be cured.

Currently, only 48% population in Afghanistan have access to safe drinking water and only 37 percent use substandard sanitation system with serious health implications, especially for children. Using from such sanitation, daily dozens of children are taken to the hospitals for an urgent treatment. Yet unfortunately, the government or the Kabul mayor has not taken a serious and useful step with a standard sanitation system to trim-down the rate of illness among those homeless people. While some parts of the country are physically water scarce, most people lack access to safe water because of inadequate infrastructure and poor management rather than insufficient resources.

During three decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, water supply infrastructure has been neglected or destroyed, while the relevant institutions are responsible for management and service delivery have collapsed. Around 73 percent of the population relies on improvised and inadequate facilities to supply water, while water sources are becoming increasingly polluted and overexploited particularly in Kabul city. Currently in Kabul city, 80 percent of the population lives in unplanned settlements where poor sanitation and lack of access to safe drinking water are common.

Our request from the government is to concern over such issues to along with its political deal because daily dozens of children are dying of lack of access to potable water and other crude livelihood facilities.

Warmest Regards
Salima Naiazi
Makroyan-e-3, Kabul