COUNTRY FACTS

• 77 million lack access to safe water
• 769 million lack access to improved sanitation
• 58% of the total population lives on less than US$3.10 per day

PROGRAM STATS

• Water.org programs started in 2005
• 11 WaterCredit programs
• 796,997 WaterCredit loans disbursed
• Approximately US$133.7 million provided in loans
• 3.4 million people reached

 

The Water & Sanitation Crisis in India

India is the second most populous country in the world, with more than 1.2 billion citizens. Roughly half of India’s population, a staggering 569 million, practice open defecation.

The World Bank estimates that 21 percent of communicable diseases in India are linked to unsafe water and the lack of hygiene practices. Further, over 500 children under the age of five die each day from diarrhea in India alone.

With its strong microfinance sector and extensive need for improved water supply and sanitation solutions, India provides one of the greatest opportunities for Water.org to scale WaterCredit. Monitor Deloitte estimates that the rural sanitation market in India is worth US$25 billion.

OUR IMPACT

Since 2003, Water.org has played a significant role in India’s progress towards improved water, sanitation and hygiene. Through WaterCredit, we have reached more than 3.4 million people across 12 states with safe water and sanitation. By partnering with different types of organizations including microfinance institutions, self-help group federations, housing finance corporations, commercial banks, payment banks, social enterprises and the Government of India, Water.org is mobilizing resources and sharing knowledge to increase access to improved sanitation and safe water.

*Additional Source:

Monitor Deloitte (2015): A market led, evidence based, approach to rural sanitation.

Updated January 2017

Water.org program data through September 2016

Sources:

• ”Poverty headcount ratio at $3.10 a day” The World Bank.
• WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2015.

originally posted on March 9, 2016

 

While politicians and celebrities focus on the water crisis in Flint, MI, other cities across the U.S. quietly endure their own water emergencies.

by Laxmi Yadav, originally posted on January 7, 2017

 

Expressing concern over unsafe water adversely affecting children’s immune system making them vulnerable to diarrhoea and pneumonia, leading cause of one-third of all deaths of children under five years of age in India, healthcare experts have called for immediate corrective and preventive actions for safe water and improved immunity.

It is estimated that around 37.7 million Indians, especially children, are affected by water-borne diseases annually. Over 5 million children are estimated to die of diarrhoea alone, and 73 million working days are lost due to water-borne diseases each year. Unsafe water and poor sanitation contributed 7.5 per cent of total deaths and 9.4 per cent of total disability-adjusted life years in India, according to a WHO study.

Forty five per cent of India’s children are stunted and 600,000 children under five die each year, largely because of inadequate water supply and poor sanitation, says a report by UNICEF.

Dr. Sushant Mane, Associate Professor in Pediatrics, JJ Hospital says, “Unsafe water supply is dangerous for both kids as they are the most vulnerable lot. Poor quality water adversely affect their immune system. Studies reveal that one-third of all deaths of children under five years of age in India are due to diarrhoea and pneumonia which are result of poor immune system.”

“Even those survive face many challenges on health front. Such diseases further weaken their immune system. Some of them who survive become underweight and malnourished, which has a severe impact on their learning ability throughout their lives,” Dr. Mane added.

Situation is even worse in rural India. Surveys have estimated that over one-third of rural groundwater sources in India may be contaminated with microbes, much of this contamination is preventable through proper operation and maintenance of water sources coupled with safe sanitation practices.

“Access to safe drinking water remains a challenge in rural areas. About a very large number of people in India still defecate in the open and 67 per cent of Indian households do not treat their drinking water. Likewise, in urban areas water supply pipelines and open drainage channels running side by side put the safety of drinking water at stake,” says Dr. Mukesh Sanklecha, Consultant Pediatrician and Neonatologist, Bombay Hospital.

“We need to make efforts on two fronts. First people should be made aware about safe water consumption, proper hygiene and ill-effects of unsafe water on immune system of kids. Children need not only safe water but proper intake of recommended intake of key nutrients-vitamin A, C and Iron to boost their immunity,” Dr. Sanklecha added.

Unsafe water causes havoc on kid’s health. So it is time to act fast.  Immediate corrective and preventive actions need to be taken to ensure safe water and improved immunity. India can afford lower immunity, a major cause of child deaths from diarrhoeal diseases, experts said.

by Colin A. Young, originally posted on January 7, 2017

 

BOSTON — The red sash that bisected Massachusetts from Essex County to the Berkshires on the U.S. Drought Monitor’s map for much of 2016 — indicating areas of extreme drought — has receded into a red belt buckle covering the Greater Springfield area.

The Drought Monitor on Thursday reported that just 8.59 percent of the state’s area is still experiencing an extreme drought — down from 36.12 percent last week and the lowest level since early August. That extreme swath covers most of Hampden County, and parts of Hampshire and Berkshire counties.

At the height of the drought, in September, more than 52 percent of the state was in the extreme drought classification.

The parts of Franklin, Worcester, Middlesex and Essex counties that had been categorized as under an extreme drought were this week downgraded to the severe drought category, which now encompasses 60.54 percent of the state. Cape Cod, much of southeastern Massachusetts and the northwest corner of the state — totaling 28.96 percent — are classified as experiencing a “moderate drought.”

“The recent increase in precipitation since early December plus low temperatures and minimal evaporation have slowly increased the soil moisture, including ground water recharge as only 7 of 17 wells in northeastern Massachusetts were still below the 25th percentile,” a National Weather Service meteorologist wrote in a summary of the Monitor’s latest report.

The Boston area received at least 1.3 inches of rain during the week-long period that the Monitor considered before issuing its latest report, according to the National Weather Service. The 0.95 inches of rain that fell in the Boston area on Tuesday and Wednesday will be counted towards next week’s Drought Monitor report.

Martha’s Vineyard is the only part of the state classified as “abnormally dry” and Nantucket is the only region considered to be sufficiently hydrated, according to the Monitor.

Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton last month declared a “drought advisory” for Cape Cod and the islands, and a “drought warning” for the rest of the state. Regions under a drought warning should eliminate outdoor water use, according to EEA. EEA has also urged residents to reduce indoor water usage, fix any indoor leaks, and conduct water audits to conserve water during the winter.

Also Thursday, the state’s Drought Management Task Force met and recommended that Beaton move northeast Massachusetts into the drought watch category, the least severe of the task force’s four drought categories, and leave the other regions in the same categories as last month.

The recommendations are not final until Beaton makes his declaration, which is expected in the next day or two.

 

by Jacinda Ardern, originally posted on January 8, 2017

 

OPINION: The National government traded away Kiwis’ rights to clean water.

There are probably a few topics of conversation over the summer months that will come up repeatedly: whether new year resolutions are futile, why so many icons passed away in 2016, Trump…

But one has stuck in my mind. I was in Hastings, discussing the water crisis in Havelock North, when a resident described to me the aftermath of the issue: the days when the drinking water smelt so strongly of a chlorinated pool you couldn’t bring yourself to drink it, the feeling that everything that could be drunk needed to be boiled, and being unable to imaginea day when they couldn’t drink the water that came through their tap at home.

But Havelock North was not a one off, it  just happened to be the moment where our entire country’s water quality issues moved from being about polluted rivers and lakes (that we could turn a blind eye to), to being about the liquid piped into the kitchen taps of one small town.

In fact, for the past three years, the residents of Ashburton have been unable to use bore water to feed babies because of the nitrate levels and risk of blue baby syndrome.

These are third world water issues, right on our doorstep.

But our poor drinking water is just a manifestation of our poor water quality, overall. There was a time when our only worry about jumping into our nearest river was the possibility of upsetting the eels. When that changed and 60 per cent of our monitored swimming sites were (based on the Government’s own reports) graded as poor  or very poor, the response wasn’t to up our game, it was to reduce our minimum standards from ‘swimmable’ to ‘wadeable.’

I’d like to be level-headed enough to eloquently articulate all of the reasons why this drop in standard is so wrong. But I think what enrages me is that faced with the known problem, the National government just traded away our right to rivers clean enough to swim in – that was every New Zealanders right, and it wasn’t theirs to trade.

The warning signs were all there – we were in a dairy boom. There were incentives to intensify and convert land to diary and that’s exactly what happened. Among all of this increase in effluent run off and increasing use of nitrates, it was councils that had responsibility for managing the impact on our waterways, but essentially didn’t.  And if we needed further confirmation that we had a problem, we got our first shot across the bow from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in 2004 via his report Growing for Good.

Labour was in government at the time, and tried to find a solution that would mean bringing our water back to standard via a national policy statement. It took years to develop, and even met resistance from government departments. In 2010 a panel of experts (the Sheppard Board) set out exactly how we could clean up our waterways over the course of a generation. But by then, we had a new government. The idea of putting any restrictions on future intensification wasn’t a priority, and clearly neither was our water.

Don’t get me wrong. I grew up in Morrinsville. I will always acknowledge the importance of our dairy industry and I sincerely believe that there are farmers out there who have watched their kids grow up around the rivers and streams that cross their land who care deeply about this issue. But our dairy industry is not full of family operated businesses – there are syndicates and corporates who will often push for outputs and won’t feel any connection to these environmental issues that effect us all, especially if it impacts on the bottom line. That’s not good enough.

I’ve heard David Parker, our spokesman for water and one of the most passionate advocates for river protection that I have seen in Parliament, often say that the most important river to most of us is the one we live close to and use. We can and should turn our water crisis around, and if your river and my river are clean enough to swim in, then they all will be. It’s not too much to ask.

David Seymour responds

First of all, a sense of proportion. The Ministry of Health reports annually on the water quality of all registered water networks serving more than 100 people.  The 2015 report found 95 per cent of people received water at standard. When things went wrong, water suppliers took immediate remedial action for all but 1.1 percent of the population. Jacinda can’t help being an opposition politician, but science and data matter when it comes to health and the environment, and she has gotten a little carried away trying to paint a gloomy picture here.

That doesn’t help those affected in places such as Havelock North and Ashburton, though.  The Ministry’s report tells us almost all of the problems occur in smaller centres, where councils may not have the scale and resource of a Hamilton or a Christchurch.

I suggest these councils need to focus on their core business, such as water. Havelock North, for instance, was involved in promoting the wine industry at the time of their outbreak.  Ashburton District Council recently disestablished its economic development arm after it lost nearly $100,000 investing in a hot pool that the economic development chair had a personal interest in. The water problems we do have are a reminder that councils, especially small ones, need to focus on their core business first.

 – Sunday Star Times

 

 

by Lisa Barrington, originally posted on January 9, 2017

 

Air strikes have escalated in a rebel-held valley near Damascus containing the Syrian capital’s main water supply, a day after insurgents and the government failed to agree a plan to repair the springs knocked out of service two weeks ago.

Several rebel groups warned that the escalation effectively meant the collapse of a shaky ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey.

The government and allied fighters from the Lebanese group Hezbollah launched an offensive two weeks ago to take back Wadi Barada, a valley where springs provided water to 4 million people in the capital.

The government says it wants to enter the valley to secure the water supply to the capital.

Rebels and local activists say pro-government forces are using the water issue to score a political victory weeks after the fall of Aleppo city.

“There is no longer any point in a ceasefire that is adhered to by one side. I think in the next few hours there will be an important development and a (decision) to freeze (enforcing) the ceasefire,” said Mamoun Haj Musa, spokesman for the Free Syrian Army-affiliated Suqur al Sham rebel group, which is a signatory to the ceasefire.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 24 air strikes had hit the valley since Sunday morning.

A military media unit run by the Hezbollah said on Sunday it was suspending a ceasefire in the Wadi Barada area because rebels were disrupting negotiations and had opened fire on repair teams.

The Wadi Barada media office, run by local activists connected to the negotiating team, said it was untrue that any repair team had entered the valley, saying engineers had waited at the area’s border while negotiations went on.

Rebels in Wadi Barada have allowed government engineers to maintain and operate the valley’s pumping station, which supplies 70 per cent of Damascus and its surroundings, since they took control of the area in 2012.

The United Nations said the spring was damaged two weeks ago because “infrastructure was deliberately targeted”, without saying who was responsible, and warned shortages in the capital could lead to waterborne disease outbreaks.

Rebels and activists say the spring was damaged by pro-government force bombardment. The government said rebels polluted the spring with diesel, forcing the state to cut supplies.

A U.N. spokesman said this week sabotaging civilian water supplies constituted a war crime.

originally posted on January 16, 2017

 

Keerni: The past three decades have not been kind to the residents of Keerni. This village in the Poonch district of Indian-administerd-Kashmir sits on the disputed Line of Control between India and Pakistan, and has seen people and cattle maimed or killed in the crossfire or by landmines.

Residents of Keerni’s 750 mud-built homes also have had to deal with intensifying border conflict following India’s strikes against purported terrorist camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in September.

Now the inhabitants of this village in the foothills of the Himalaya must grapple not just with heightened security threats but with a state-wide drought that is hitting them especially hard. Experts say Jammu and Kashmir is reeling under the longest dry spell in a decade.

Winter crops which would usually be sown by October or November cannot be cultivated this season in many areas of the state reliant on rainfall. Sonam Lotus, director of the state’s Meteorology Department, told the local press in early December that Jammu and Kashmir had been dealing with a dry spell since 2007 and it was unlikely to break anytime soon.

Isolated border villages such as Keerni, which lacks road connections, piped water, a school or a hospital, are among those worst affected by the drought. “Since our area has not received any rains until now, our farms remain unploughed. We’ll have to purchase food and fodder in the days to come,” said farmer Mohammad Fakir.

Fakir said two factors are making it increasingly difficult to stay in the village. “Farming is our only source of livelihood and rains have become highly unpredictable. Second, the frequent ceasefire violations keep disrupting routine life, and no one feels safe here,” he said.

“In the wake of ongoing skirmishes, we couldn’t harvest crops in time. Due to the delay, wild animals damaged a lot of our standing crop,” he said. Fakir said that he harvested 250kg of maize and 30kg of pulses from his half-hectare (1.25 acre) plot last season, only one-third of what he had anticipated.

In the past, water shortages were not an issue, he said. “The village would get 2-3 feet snow every winter about three decades ago, and there used to be no drinking water scarcity all through the year. But the snowfall has reduced drastically over the past few years. Now the village sees only a few inches of snow annually,” he said.

With no electric-powered flour mill in the village, the single water-powered mill has been struggling to meet demand as the flow of the stream declines. Villagers fear the mill may shut down due to lack of rain long before the stocks of grain to be milled are exhausted.

Fakir said the security situation makes things even more complicated than before. “In the wake of border cross-firing, (the) very few remaining water bodies also become inaccessible to us and our cattle,” he said. People here are accustomed to the threats from ongoing border strife between India and Pakistan. In 2001, all Keerni’s residents were evacuated from the village for security reasons. When they were finally allowed to return to their rundown dwellings 10 years later, the village was virtually cut off from the rest of the country by a huge fence on one side, with landmines marking the Line of Control on the other.

Residents of Keerni say they must effectively cross a border in the form of the fence to enter their own country – a crossing allowed only during specified hours – to get access to basic facilities such as healthcare and education.

Fortifying the area ate up a large chunk of farmland and restricted access to resources such as water, residents say. What agricultural land remained also had degraded after being left uncultivated for almost 10 years.

Nazam Deen Mir, a local teacher with a monthly salary of 3,000 rupees ($44), said that during the drought the government should provide villagers with jobs quickly under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a rural job scheme. Otherwise, he said, “a majority of our men will have to leave their homes in search of alternative livelihood opportunities.”

Citing drought affecting many parts of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in April that a “massive effort” would be launched under the rural employment scheme to improve water conservation and storage. Some villagers already have left Keerni, along with their families, to work as labourers in the state’s winter capital, Jammu. But others sound increasingly hopeless about future.

“A farmer in our border village knows exactly what to do in the face of exploding shells and bullets whizzing by” said Khaleel Ahmed Mir, 22. “One can somehow cope with the loss of life, limbs and livestock. But one really doesn’t have any idea how to deal with this (drought) situation.”

by Fernando Del Valle, originally posted on January 16, 2017

 

SAN BENITO — Some questions surrounding last week’s water plant shutdown might be closer to being answered.

Today, city commissioners are expected to meet with consultants and engineers to discuss the Jan. 9 shutdown of the old water plant, City Commissioner Esteban Rodriguez said yesterday.

Rodriguez said San Antonio-based consultants Lou Portillo & Associates will help commissioners determine what went wrong when the water plant shut down for about 11 hours, leading the city to issue an advisory warning residents to boil water before drinking it.

In 2015, the consultants, with contracted-engineer Victor Gutierrez, conducted a study of the water plant’s “functionality and reliability” while recommending steps to renovate the facility built in 1927.

“We’re going to get an assessment of what happened and what needs to be done,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to discuss what’s going on.”

Rodriguez said he wants to make sure the plant doesn’t shut down again.

“It still needs work,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure everything is online and running right so we don’t get in the same situation.”

Meanwhile, the city continues its $3 million project to renovate the 90-year-old plant as part of a plan to increase its lifespan by 20 years.

City Manager Manuel De La Rosa has blamed low temperatures for problems that led the old water plant to shut down at about 7 p.m. Jan. 8.

Problems also led to the shutdown of water pumped into the system by the city of Harlingen, whose agreement provides emergency supplies of water.

About four hours later, the city issued its water boil advisory.

Trouble started at about 1 a.m. Jan. 7 when the water plant’s air line developed moisture that began freezing after temperatures dipped into the upper 30s, De La Rosa said.

As a result, a leak led to decreased water flow.

By 6 a.m. Jan. 9, the city had restored water pressure and flow.

That drop in pressure required a water boil notice to all users.

The city lifted its water boil advisory at about 2:55 p.m. Jan. 10.

It was the second time the city had turned to Harlingen for water.

Last September, the old water plant lost pressure after a waterline break, leading the city to utilize Harlingen water.

In 2014, the city turned to the old water plant as its primary water source after shutting down its $17.9 million water plant because it wasn’t efficiently working.

In turn, the city filed a lawsuit against companies behind the construction of the water plant built in 2009.

by James F. MaCarty, originally posted on January 17, 2017

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Environmentalists, scientists and U.S. Senate Democrats are mustering opposition in preparation for Wednesday’s scheduled confirmation hearings for U.S. EPA administrator nominee Scott Pruitt.

Few federal agencies have a more direct impact on our lives, overseeing laws governing clean air, water and soil.

And few cabinet nominees since the notorious Secretary of the Interior James Watt more than 30 years ago have arrived on Capitol Hill with such controversial credentials.

Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, is an avowed climate change denier with close ties to the oil and gas industry. He has sued the EPA 14 times in attempts to block the very air, water and climate regulations he would be in charge of enforcing if he receives Senate confirmation.

He has worked hand-in-hand with energy industry lobbyists to oppose federal clean-air regulations. And he has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from executives and lawyers from the agriculture, oil and gas companies he was entrusted with policing.

A prominent army of opponents is organizing a counter-offensive to make sure that doesn’t happen. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists have both called for Pruitt to be rejected.

On Thursday, a delegation of scientists delivered a letter signed by 102 scientists, doctors and engineers from Ohio to the office of Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, urging him to oppose Pruitt’s nomination.

Portman’s vote is considered a key to deciding the issue in a closely-divided Senate, said Veronica Vieland, director of the Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.

“Mr. Pruitt has spent his career challenging and undermining public health protections and critical science-based standards,” the letter read. “We need an EPA administrator who will adhere to the science and preserve these protections rather than erode them to the benefit of industry.”

A Portman spokesman was noncommittal last night.

“Rob is carefully considering all of the nominees, meeting with them personally as they undergo a rigorous evaluation process,” said spokesman Kevin Smith.

Pruitt’s supporters include a coalition of 23 conservative advocacy groups who last week sent a letter of endorsement to the Senate, while criticizing the current state of the EPA.

“Some claim that Mr. Pruitt opposes clean air and water. This could not be further than the truth,” the letter read. “Mr. Pruitt respects and upholds the Constitution, and understands that many of the nation’s challenges regarding clean air and water are best met at the state and local level.”

At the same time Pruitt is waiting at the door to the EPA, Congress has taken action behind closed doors to gut critical public health laws that reduce carbon pollution from vehicles, oil and gas infrastructure, power plants and other sources, former EPA administrator Carol Browner told the Public News Service in Columbus.

The Midnight Rule Relief Act, which passed the House last week, could eliminate with a single vote any rule finalized in the last several months by President Obama, she said.

“They’re doing it in a way that’s hard to follow,” Browner said. “It’s hard for the public to really see what’s happening, and I think that’s intentional because people like clean air and clean water. They don’t want those safeguards rolled back, even if Congress wants them rolled back.”

She’s withholding judgment on Pruitt if he wins confirmation.

“We all believed in the mission of the agency, we believed it was our job to protect the health of the American people, and I certainly hope that Mr. Pruitt will find it within himself to share that,” Browner told Public News Service.

Few of Pruitt’s opponents, however, are so optimistic. If confirmed, they expect him to bring a radical shift in EPA policies to Washington by shelving the Obama administration’s aggressive environmental enforcement and embracing the industries the agency is charged with policing.

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told the New York Times that Pruitt is the first EPA nominee from either party that his group has opposed in its 50-year history.

“The president’s choices deserve a lot of deference from Congress and even environmental groups,” Krupp said. “But at some point when the nominee has spent his entire career attempting to dismantle environmental protections, it becomes unacceptable.”

The potential for major damaging impact is great for Northeast Ohio, where much of the effects of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the EPA’s ban of the pesticide DDT can be seen all around us:

• The Cuyahoga Valley National Park is one of the most visited parks in the nation, and is home to once-rare river otters and beavers, bald eagles and ospreys, coyotes and turkeys;
• Endangered raptors have benefited the most from the ban on DDT;
• In 2016, there were 207 eagle nests in Ohio, compared to four nests in 1978. Those nests produced an estimated 327 young eagles last year;
• Prior to 1988, peregrine falcons had been extirpated from the Eastern U.S. But since then, a reintroduction program has been so successful that, by 2014, there were at least 34 nesting pairs of peregrines statewide;
• The Coliseum Grasslands are one of the best spots in the state to see bobolinks, Henslow’s sparrows and other threatened grassland species;
• Black bears and bobcats are becoming more common, and walleye are showing up again in the Cuyahoga River as the water quality gradually improves;
• Last April, David Berg of Mentor caught a state record yellow perch – 2.86 pounds! – and charter boat captains reported one of their best fishing seasons in more than a decade;
• Federal funds from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative are being used to eradicate phragmites and other invasive vegetation from the Mentor Marsh and Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve;
• The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District has embarked on a $3 billion master plan called Project Clean Lake, constructing a network of seven tunnels designed to eliminate an estimated 4.5 billion gallons of raw sewage from flowing into Lake Erie and area streams after heavy rains. Completion is expected by 2036.

Maintaining and improving upon these environmental accomplishments would be threatened under the EPA leadership of Pruitt, according to the letter submitted by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Pruitt’s record shows that he simply won’t do the job, and his confirmation would pose a threat to public health,” the letter said.

The scientists note that just two laws enforced by the EPA–the Cross State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule–will save Ohio an estimated $32 billion in health costs per year, and prevent up to 3,900 premature deaths.

“Yet Pruitt has sued the EPA to block these rules, and has consistently opposed the EPA’s ability to enforce laws that keep Ohio’s air and drinking water safe,” the letter reads.

originally posted on January 30, 2017

 

BAIDOA, Somalia- Over 32 people died and dozens have been taken to the hospital after drinking poisonous water from a well in a rural village near Baidoa town on Monday, Garowe Online reports.

Several high-ranking officials from Southwest state arrived  at the well located in Masubiyow, a locality with thousands of families,  40 km away from Baidoa town, the regional capital of Bay region.

The ministry of health for Southwest state has confirmed the deaths of the people to GO over the phone, saying at least twelve children were among those who died after drinking the poisoned water.

The health ministry, however did not immediately clear how the water that led to the deaths of 32 people got poisoned, including whether anyone or any group might be responsible.

The officials say they are probing into the issue and will find out who was responsible for the water poisoning. The area has been a battle ground between Southwest troops and Al Shabaab militants.

Amran Mohamed, a mother of four in the area said her two children are among those dead after drinking the water in Masubiyow village located between Baidoa and Deynunay towns in Bay region.

Since the collapse of former military regime in 1991, the access to quality drinking water had been a big problem in parts of Somalia, a country that was beset by over two decades of conflict and civil war.