The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling on governments participating at the 5th World Water Forum in Turkey (16th - 22nd March) to give victims of armed conflict better access to water and sanitation services.
The call comes as ICRC teams repair water and sewage systems in Gaza that were badly damaged during the 3 week Israeli military operations in January. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, one fifth of the population had no direct access to drinking water and relied on water purchased from private suppliers. Today, thousands of people still have no access to running water.
The treatment of sewage remains a problem. Gaza's biggest wastewater treatment plant in Sheikh Ajleen, treating raw sewage from some 400,000 people, has been out of order since it was hit by a shell during the second week of the conflict. Raw sewage poured directly into residential areas, agricultural lands and the Mediterranean Sea posing a serious public health threat. A main sewage pipe line was repaired by a team of ICRC and Palestinian engineers on 22nd January, but extensive repair work needs to be carried out before the treatment plant is fully operational.
However repair efforts have been hampered by delays in obtaining approval from the Israeli authorities to bring in pipes and spare parts for Sheikh Ajleen and other water treatment plants.
"The first thing people ask us for is water and electricity", says Marek Komarzynski, ICRC water engineer. "That is what they need to lead anything like normal lives."
Gaza's water infrastructure was in a poor state even before the recent conflict as Israel's closure policy had greatly restricted the supply of materials to maintain the system over the past 18 months.
"Of course it is an emergency situation", says Farid Ashour, site manager with the Coastal Municipalities Water Unit, that works with the ICRC on repairing and rebuilding Gaza's sewage and water treatment system. "We are all suffering from the closures and we are suffering from the lack of materials. By ICRC we think we are doing something good to the people and they are really helpful and they are helping the Palestinians."
Before the recent outbreak of hostilities, hospitals were already struggling to provide clean water for their patients. Those on kidney dialysis machines were particularly badly hit.
Working with the Ministry of Health, over the past two years the ICRC has also been installing water purification systems in Gaza's main hospitals.
Roughly a quarter of the estimated 1.2 billion people unable to obtain clean drinking water are in war torn countries. 15 % of the 2.6 billion people without access to proper sanitation live in conflict affected areas.