Seven counties in northern Kenya hit by water crisis

Ewaso Nyiro River has dried up due to the biting drought. [Photo: JOB WERU/STANDARD]

An acute water shortage has hit seven counties in northern Kenya, with authorities saying the situation has reached a crisis level.

Northern Water Services Board (NWSB), which serves Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit, Isiolo, Samburu and Laikipia, said nearly two million people with hundreds of thousands of their livestock require urgent water supply.

The counties under NWSB cover 43 per cent of Kenya’s land mass with a population of 3.4 million people and host 70 per cent of country’s livestock.

NWSB has deployed water bowsers to transport water to herders who have migrated to remote areas in search of pasture for their animals.

The corporation’s CEO Abdikadir Osman said the acute water shortage was due to severe drought in the region.

Mr Osman, who was accompanied by Board of Management Director David Timado, said in Marsabit town, the organisation had since last October deployed water bowsers to villagers and herders in the region.

NWSB said the cost of supplying water using trucks was high due to fuel consumption.

There are 47 water bowsers each with capacity of 20,000 litres criss-crossing the vast region to ferry water to villagers and their animals.

 LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE

“Some of the water bowsers are hired and they are still not enough to serve the residents. We are faced with logistical nightmare because the region is vast and herders have migrated to distant areas,” said Osman.

He said storage tanks are also required by herders, with the corporation managing to give out 166 in the region.

“There is a lot of water stress in the region with some boreholes drying up,” said the official.

Mr Timado said the drought situation in the region had reached crisis level and called on all stakeholders to focus on intervention measures.

“All stakeholders from the county and national governments, NGOs and the international community should focus on combating the drought to save human, livestock and wildlife from death,” said Timado.

He said more water trucks and storage tanks are needed in the region.

“We have had many problems in even distributing water and storage tanks as most of the herders have migrated from their villages. We are forced to trace them and take the services to where they are now,” said Timado. 

DOUBLE DISTRIBUTION

There is large concentration of herders and their stock in Isiolo’s Merti District as those from Marsabit, Samburu and parts of Wajir had migrated there in search of pasture and water.

During last Thursday visit to Marsabit town, President Uhuru Kenyatta said the national government would double distribution of relief food, trucking of water and provision of fodder crops to affected areas.

“We have allocated to the (emergency) kitty enough funds (that includes) from other departments. No one is going to die because of hunger and no more livestock would die,” he promised.

The President called on county governments in regions hit by drought to allocate enough funds to address the situation.