Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Korogocho (Agenzia Fides) – Poor sanitation, lack of water and related disease outbreaks are making the lives of the residents of the sprawling Korogocho slums in Nairobi even harder. The threat of typhoid, cholera and other diseases from poor sanitation is real, along with the threat of water-borne diseases in the area. According to the 2009 census, an estimated one in five Kenyans uses the bush as a toilet - access to piped water covers only 38.4 percent of the urban population and 13.4 percent of rural residents.
According to the recent Humanitarian Futures Group (HFG) report, “Urban Catastrophes: The Wat/San Dimension,” which examines how water and sanitation stress drives other humanitarian crises in slums, many urban environments have enough water in absolute terms to provide for residents’ needs. The challenge is how to equitably manage and distribute it. In Kenya, slum infrastructure has remained inadequate as it is not government policy to support development in what are considered illegal informal settlements. Residents tamper with electricity and water connections, often resulting in clashes as security personnel are deployed to stop the connections. Health problems such as malnutrition, diarrhoea, cholera, and typhoid fever are common, especially when water is mixed with industrial and sewage effluent. At present, there are 2.6 billion people living without safe sanitation, which means countless communities where people are exposed to their own and others’ faeces. In Africa, diarrhoea kills almost one in five children before their fifth birthday. In Korogocho, private individuals use handcarts with large drums to manually empty sludge from pit latrines at a fee. This is often done at night and the contents sometimes end up in the Nairobi River. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 5/10/2010)
