Contaminated Water Taking Lives in Liberia's Slums

It is often said in Liberia: “to spoil it is easy but to build it is hard.” So is the case with water and sanitation here. The 14-year civil war destroyed much of the water supply and sanitation facilities. People escaping brutal battles in the heart of the country relocated to Monrovia – overcrowding the city’s slums and turning them into urban jungles of dirty water and sewage. Tecee Boley has been visiting some of these slums and brings us this report.

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Kulah Borbor fled heavy fighting in the interior during Liberia’s civil war. With her husband and four young children in tow, she walked for two days from her hometown in western Grand Cape Mount County before finally settling here on the edge of the ocean in West Point, one of Monrovia’s largest slums.

There were thousands of Liberians like Borbor who squeezed into shantytowns like this. Overcrowding stretched services, and clean water and sanitation facilities became all but non-existent. Instead came a toxic combination of disgusting dirty water, garbage and sewage. Soon says the 47-year-old Borbor, her husband Momoh Massaley became sick with the water-borne disease… cholera.

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TIME: 20 seconds
“WHEN MY HUSBAND THAT CHOLERA GRAPE HIM, I PUT HIM IN CAR RIGHT TO WEST POINT CLINIC. THE AMBULANCE TOOK HIM. WHEN WE GOT TO JFK HE DIED…YES THE SAME DAY I CARRY HIM AROUND SIX O CLOCK IN THE MORNING AND HE DIED NINE O CLOCK THE SAME DAY.”

Borbor’s husband didn’t stand a chance. Cholera has claimed the lives of many like him in these slums.

The statistics are shocking!

18 percent of all deaths in Liberia are related to illnesses caused by poor water and sanitation – illnesses like diarrhea, malaria and cholera – according to a 2008 World Health Organization report. Small children are especially at risk.

Only two-thirds of Liberians have access to safe drinking water. Fewer than one in 5 Liberians has access to improved sanitation facilities.

Despite President Sirleaf’s boasts of having restored pipe born water, just 1 percent of households actually get water that way according to the latest estimates from the joint UNICEF / World Health Organization monitoring program.

NAT SOUND: sound of clothes washing

Fatumah Kormah washes clothes in Barclay Town, where about seven 7,000 people live in shacks jammed together and built of old rusted zinc.

The 25-year-old mother of two spends hours every day filtering muddy brown water from the well for drinking, cooking and washing. The well water is unpurified and unclean, just like the rain water West Point’s Kulah Borbor and her family drink. But Kormah doesn’t dare use the water from the only hand pump in the area.

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TIME: 16 seconds
THAT WATER RUSTY JUST DRAW IT AND SET IT DOWN FEW HOURS LATER WILL COME OVER IT. JUST WASH WITH IT, COOKING SELF WHEN IT BOILS IN THE POT IT CAN BE RED. SO WHAT YOU ALL CAN DO NOW? THE WELL WATER WE CAN USE.

Kormah says her two children keep getting so sick that she must take them to the hospital nearly every week.

SFX: sound of running water

Ironically, Liberia’s president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene ambassador for all of Africa. One of her government’s pledges was to bring safe drinking water to 50 percent of Liberians by 2012. Another key goal… was to lift access to human waste collection and disposal from 15 to 40 percent. In a recent interview, the president acknowledges that the lack of clean water and sanitation is one of the biggest challenges for the country and for her government.

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TIME: 30 seconds
AS YOU KNOW MANY PEOPLE CAME INTO THE URBAN AREAS FOR SAFETY, THEY ARE IN RAMSHACKLE HOUSES THAT DON’T HAVE SANITATION FACILITIES SO WE’VE BEEN TRYING TO BUILD LATRINES IN MOST OF THE PLACES BUT WE HAVE TO MOVE FROM THAT TO A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE IN THEIR HOMES HAVE ACCESS TO PROPER SANITARY CONDITIONS THAT THE NEXT PHASE WILL MOVE ON.”

While president Sirleaf talks about moving on to the next phase, critics argue that past promises have already fallen short.

NAT SOUND: Green Advocates Office

Sirleaf’s administration is failing to meet the goals set up for water and sanitation says program associate of the civil society group Green Advocates, Tharam Quaye.

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“2009-2010 THEY HAD FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE UNITED STATES DOLLARS ALLOCATED FOR WATER AND SEWER BUT THEY HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SUPPLY TWENTY FIVE PERCENT OF THE POPULATION IN MONROVIA. THAT’S JUST FRAGMENTED SECTORS OF MONROVIA THAT IS BEEN SUPPLY WITH SAFE DRINKING WATER AND THEN THE REST OF THE POPULATION IS LEFT OUT.”

NAT SOUND: Sound of the environment

With her husband dead, Kulah Borbor has four children to take care of alone. She’s lucky. She makes enough money to buy the five-gallon container of unpurified water every day at a cost of fifty Liberian dollars – about 70 US cents. She then purifies with a solution made by WaterAid International. But most of West Point’s 60,000 residents live in poverty and cannot afford such solutions, she says.

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TIME: 24 seconds
“YOU SEE THIS COMMUNITY WE GET SOME PEOPLE CAN’T AFFORD TO BUY THAT FIFTY DOLLARS GALLON OF WATER. SO SOME OF THEM CAN DRAW THE WELL WATER AND ITS SALTY BECAUSE THEY AIN’T GET MONEY TO BUY GALLON OF WATER FIFTY DOLLARS. SOME OF THEM PUT BUCKET DOWN AS THE RAIN FALL THEY TAKE IT AND DRINK AS WE WERE DOING AND I LOSE MY HUSBAND.”

President Sirleaf claims her government has provided pipe water to some communities, including West Point, to help address the problem. But Quaye questions whether this water ever actually reaches West Point.

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TIME: 26 seconds
“WELL, AT ONE POINT IN TIME THE GOVERNMENT SAID THEY WERE SUPPLYING SAFE DRINKING WATER TO A PARTICULAR SLUM COMMUNITY WEST POINT BUT THEN WE HAVE NOTICED THAT IT HAS BECOME IRREGULAR. MAYBE LIKE IN A MONTH TIME THEY HAVE WATER SUPPLY ONLY TWO TIMES AND THAT IS NOT HEALTHY. PEOPLE GO ABOUT FETCHING RAIN WATER OR WHERE EVER THAT HAS NOT BEEN FULLY TREATED AND THIS CREATES HEALTH RISK FOR THEM.

NAT SOUND: Sound of children playing in West Point

Here in West Point, a green building stands tall against the cluster of zinc shacks around it, near the only field that serves as a recreation center for the community. Children run under the building’s awning to seek shade from the scorching sun. Inside is the office of the West Point Women Health and Development Association where Kulah Borbor works. She teaches other women like herself the importance of hygiene and sanitation and how to purify drinking water.

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TIME: 25seconds
“I WENT THERE TO WORK WITH THEM SO THAT SOMEBODY CAN’T BE VICTIM LIKE ME. I'VE GOT CHILDREN TODAY WITHOUT FATHER BECAUSE OF CHOLERA SO I DON’T WANT SOMEBODY TO BE LIKE ME. SO I PUT MYSELF INTO IT VOLUNTARILY. WE ARE TEACHING THE PEOPLE SAFE DRINKING WATER, WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE YOU EAT ALL THOSE THINGS.”

NAT SOUND: Hand washing

Borbor knows she’s saving lives. In Liberia, more than 17 percent of deaths of children under five are due to diarrhea, according to the UNICEF/WHO monitoring program. But the simple act of hand-washing with soap can reduce the outbreak of this water-related illness by almost half!

This is a small step, but more needs to be done – in our rural areas and especially in our slums. Otherwise, many more Liberians who fled the war, leaving their towns and villages behind, risk losing an equally dangerous battle – the battle on water and sanitation.

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From West Point, this is Tecee Boley reporting for the Pulitzer Center.

ALTERNATE TRACK: From West Point, this is Tecee Boley reporting for LWDR and New Narratives.

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