Residents of Chirifoyili, a farming community in the Tolon District in the Northern Region, have appealed to the government and benevolent organisations to provide them with potable drinking water.
The lack of access to potable water has become a significant challenge, forcing residents to compete with animals to access water which poses serious health risks in the community.
The community, which relies heavily on agriculture and animal rearing, is struggling to access clean drinking water, forcing residents to abandon their economic activities and trek for about 3 kilometres daily in search of water for domestic purposes.
Residents engage in a daily battle with animals to access a contaminated water source, highlighting the dire need for clean drinking water. The community’s only source of water is a dam where humans and animals compete for access risking the spread of waterborne diseases.
Visit
During a visit of the Daily Graphic to the dam, it was observed that residents and animals were struggling for water for their domestic purposes.
A resident, Abdulai Afishatu, lamented the lack of potable drinking water in the community, saying that battling with the animals had dire consequences on their health and livelihood.
She explained that the situation had been exacerbated by the lack of an alternative source of water, exposing them to health risks and hurting their livelihood.
“We are forced to share this unwholesome water with animals, this is unacceptable so we are pleading with everybody to help us with boreholes or even pipe-borne water,” she said.
She added that the distance to access water in the community was not helping them to do their household chores, saying that residents became tired after fetching water from the dam.
Age-old challenge
Another resident, Iddrisu Fadila, said they had been battling with animals for water since 1992 and nothing had been done about it, adding that “the borehole in the community is no more functioning.”
She explained that water was the main challenge in the community and “that has affected the business that some of us are running in the area because the water is not clean enough to perform some domestic chores.
“If we are not careful, community members will have to contend with diarrhoea and stomachache which would disturb our daily activities,” she said.
All efforts to reach the District Chief Executive for Tolon, Fuseini Salifu Issifu Moshie, to ascertain what had been done about the issue proved futile.
ALSO READ: