Juba, South Sudan – By 10am, the unforgiving morning sun begins to beat down on the dusty streets and mud huts of Hai Gabat, a neighbourhood in the east of Juba, South Sudan’s capital. Sam, a 45-year-old water seller from Uganda, has been up for four hours. He is busy securing the last of six jerrycans on to the rusty frame of his old, heavy bicycle. Around him women, children and men gather beneath the sprawling boughs of a leafy tree, seeking shelter from the sun and filling dozens of yellow jerrycans with running tap water. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads The cluster of taps is one of Juba’s two UNICEF-installed water points, where water from the River Nile is treated with aluminum sulfate and chlorine before some 50,000 litres are pumped out daily for private and commercial use. This small oasis offers a source of potable water in a city where access to safe water isn’t readily available. Only 15 percent of Juba’s residents are able to access municipal water. Much of the population is left vulnerable to waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery and the Guinea worm disease. According to the United Nations, water scarcity affects more than 40 percent of the global population with 1.8 billion people worldwide drinking water that is fecally contaminated and some 1,000 children dying each day from preventable water and sanitation-related diseases. Since June 2016, South Sudan has recorded 6,774 cases of cholera, including 221 deaths. Sam, who did not want to give his last name, and his colleagues provide a vital service. They are an integral part of Juba’s water system, given the job of delivering safe drinking water to some of the city’s most vulnerable neighbourhoods. ALSO READ – South Sudan: ‘There are only dead bodies’ Dependence on mobile water vendors Juba’s water vendors start getting ready for their gruelling day’s work as soon as the sun rises at 6.30am. After paying their daily fee of just under $1 to use the water facilities, they fuel up on a breakfast of bread, eggs and tea at a nearby restaurant. Then they begin their rounds, which continue throughout the day. They only stop when the sun sets at 7pm. South Sudan has plenty of surface and ground water potential, yet, according to an African Development Bank report, “access to water supply services is among the lowest in Africa”. Over the years, the state-run water services have increasingly deteriorated, with little government investment to expand the availability of water to households. “People in this area depend on us,” says Sam, barely audible against the roar of UN charter planes taking off from a nearby airport. The Kampala-born water vendor moved to South Sudan five years ago, drawn to Juba by the promise of better work opportunities at a time when the newborn capital appeared to be flourishing. That period was short lived. A violent civil war tore through the country just two years after its independence from Sudan. The clashes were triggered by a falling out between President Salva Kiir and…