Have you ever come across a time in your life where you would never finish your food? I sure have. Have any of your moms or dads scolded you for it and say, "Do you know of all the kids in the world who don't have food?!?" We took this with a grain of salt, for in truth it is hard to imagine a life without a simple necessity like food or water. Many of us take them for granted. An example of a current famine and water crisis is the situation in Yemen.
According to pbs.org, "Yemen is the seventh most 'water-stressed' country in the world, and scientists warn that within 10 years, Sana'a is in danger of becoming the first capital in history to run out of the already scarce resource". The article continues to talk about how the residents of the area only get access to water a few days a week. In fact, there are girls who never get an education because they spend all their days fetching water. Because of their sacrifices, it is even more important to save this precious water. This forces 14.1 million people to rely on humanitarians.
The lack of access to fresh water is notorious for being the biggest cause of malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality in rural areas. "Malnutrition kills 14,000 Yemeni children under five each year", says UN figures. But the real question is, what is causing this? The answer is not a simple one. Many factors go into this. Some include the failing government, the geographical location, they technology available, and other resources. One of the main issues is that out of the scarce amount of water they have, much of it is used on qat, a popular drug with a widespread distribution. This drug requires 5 times the amount of water that normal plants need, causing a depletion in the supply of water. Another big contributor to the water crisis is the frailty of the government. This mixed with a rapidly growing population makes it hard for anyone to resolve this problem.
Solutions HAVE been presented, some more drastic than others. Cities could buy water from agricultural wells. It would be more cost-efficient to pipe the water into town than to ship it in via tanker. Other solutions are more costly such as desalination. In 2007, Abdulrahman Al-Eryani (then Yemen’s minister for water and the environment) suggested relocating people from Sana’a to the Red Sea coast.
Sources:
Comments