In many conflicts, disease kills more civilians than bullets. Reason enough to call on governments to ensure safe water and decent sanitation for civilians in conflict zones. People need water to drink and to cook. They need water to keep themselves clean. They need water to produce food and to raise livestock. Hospitals consume huge amounts of water. There can be no life without water and it is intolerable for people not to have access to water during a conflict.

Water, sewage and electricity systems are often among the first elements of a country’s infrastructure to be put out of service. This may be due to war damage, but systems may fail simply because technicians cannot get to installations in order to operate and maintain them.

Conflict almost always forces civilians to flee, when they can. This can result in thousands of internally displaced persons arriving in an area where the water and sanitation installations were designed for a few hundred. And then those installations are shelled. And no-one can repair the damage because of the fighting. So people have no clean water and no sanitation. They drink dirty water, so they pick up water-borne diseases. They can’t wash, so they get hygiene-related diseases. Epidemics break out. People die.

There are two sides to access. The first is that civilians need safe water and decent environmental health conditions. In an urban context, this hinges largely on the continued functioning of water distribution networks, drains, sewage works and other infrastructure. In the countryside, “access” may mean being able to get to the nearest water point without being attacked on the way.

The second aspect is that professionals need access to installations. They must be able to enter pumping stations, sewage works and so forth to repair war damage, make normal “technical” repairs, carry out routine maintenance and operate equipment. It may be that all is needed is for one button to be pressed to restart a water pump. But if the technician cannot drive to the pumping station without getting shot at, he can’t press that button. So the pump doesn’t start. So people don’t get mains water. So they drink dirty water. If they drink dirty water they may get cholera. If they get cholera they may die. All because one technician couldn’t press one button.

But often, restoring water and sanitation involves more than hitting a button. Repairing war damage can be a lengthy undertaking. A few hours’ truce is welcome, but it’s often too little. Parties must suspend hostilities for long enough to allow humanitarian action, and that includes basic water and sanitation work.

Responsibility rests squarely with the authorities. International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on what are termed “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,” and these include water installations, water supplies and irrigation works. The international organizations do all they can to assist, but that doesn’t relieve the authorities of their fundamental responsibility to provide essential services.

Extreme weather events hit people in war zones especially hard. Somalia is a prime example. For decades, people there have been trying to cope with both a conflict and an increasingly severe drought. Either would be bad. Together, they’re catastrophic.

The drought forces herders to travel further to find water for their livestock. Not only does this place an additional strain on these communities, it also renders them vulnerable to attack along the way.

ec(at)balmun.de