Mahmoud Assamiee
Published:10-05-2010
Rada'a is the biggest district of the Al-Beidha governorate. It contains six districts that witness 'water wars' every now and then mainly over the irrigation of qat trees. The province is famous for its qat.
Located east of Dhamar, it has vast flatlands similar to those in Dhamar and these are used for cultivating vegetables, but with qat expansion in Rada'a, sadly these areas have been changed into qat farms.
The water supply has become a challenge for the Rada'i people, especially those in rural areas. Disputes over water in this violent and big province, soon to be a future governorate, are always erupting between villages.
Only few months ago, conflict erupted between Wadi Thah and the Al-Mas'oud tribes over a well irrigating qat. According to Dhan Al-Rada'i, an eyewitness from a village overlooking these tribes,11 people were killed, six from Al-Mas'oud and five from Wadi Thah.
In Azzan village, tensions still run high between villagers and people from Rada'a city and a well was closed after clashes previously erupted between them. People from the city used to come to Azan to get their water but the Azani's stopped them for fear of running out of water. Consequently, there is conflict between these two groups. Both villages were using water for irrigating qat. Farmers make a good business from qat as they supply most of the southern governorates, which do not produce their own .
The clashes have stopped now, after reaching an agreement that people from the city will not to come to Azzan for water and that people from Azzan are banned from using water to irrigate qat, but only for drinking and home use.
The previous well where clashes have occurred, has been closed and instead, another one nearby has been dug. Around the new one, you can see people, some armed, monitoring it and threatening to kill anyone from Rada'a city trying to approach it or anyone from their own village too, wanting to use the water for irrigating qat.
Near to the Sabah district, conflict is flaring up nowadays between the villages of Al-Riyashia and Qa's. Again, the reason is the use of water for irrigating qat.
The General Manager of National Water and Sanitation Authority, Fahd Abdul-Aziz, said the drought is threatening the whole governorate. Water resources are being depleted and the annual rainfall is deteriorating. The whole governorate suffers from a scarcity of water and depends only on rainfall, which has been very low recently.
The worst factor is that Al-Beidha'a basin is only 70 meters deep and Rada'a's is only 800 meters, as compared to other basins at 1400 meters. "The situation is going to be a disaster. Every year, people are boring wells to more than 40 meters, which is above international regulations which only allow boring wells no more than 120 c.m annually," said Abdul-Aziz.
According to him, there are 4702 wells dug illegally in Rada'a alone, with annual increase of wells numbering 200. The monthly production of water is 98,000 cubic meters.
Although he admitted that there are clashes over water in rural areas, he confirmed that the problem has been solved inside the city. He said that security in Rada'a is weak and cannot control these clashes so that water problems will continue until the security is enforced, or people get enough water.
Abdul-Aziz made it clear that all these tribal clashes are happening due to qat irrigation. He said the people's need of water in Rada'a is only 5 percent but that 95 percent of water goes towards irrigating qat, whose cultivation is expanding rapidly.
He said that the problem in the city was solved after the National Water and Sanitation Authority requalified 14 wells inside the city during the second half of 2009. But the problem is still huge in Al-Beidha'a city and the Muqairs district.
According to him, these two areas are suffering the sharpest water crisis across the governorate because of their low rainfall and the depth of water, which does not exceed 40 meters. At this depth, the ground water has been depleted.
Because of the shallow basin in these areas, Al-Beidha'a can be ranked the worst affected area.
Ineffective qat programs
Although there are several anti-qat programs adopted by The World Bank and Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and the two new qat centers adopted by GTZ and Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, no practical work has yet been carried out.
The General Manager of National Qat Center, Dr. Jamal Al-Salemi, said the center will work on educating people about the dangers of qat and will try to encourage farmers to dig up their trees from agricultural lands.
"It is difficult to tell people to stop growing qat overnight," he said. "Doing this takes gradual steps and the establishment of the qat center is the first one towards this end."
According to Al-Salemi, the center has started work in Dhamar, Haraz , Manakha and Bani Matar, to uproot qat trees of the farmers who were happy for this to happen. The center gave them almonds trees to replace their qat.
Concerning the measures taken to stop qat expansion in these areas, especially Rada'a, he said the most important point of the Monday meeting, is to stop its cultivation on both private and public agricultural land.
Most officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation who attended the meeting, confirmed the difficulty of decreasing qat agriculture and convincing people to abandon its cultivation. They agree that fighting qat will take a long time.
The Minister of Water and Environment, Abdul-Rahman Al-Iryani, said Yemen is a very dry region and 40 percent of its water resources have already been depleted. He said climate, geography, population growth and mismanagement are the main reasons behind this depletion and that qat cultivation consumes the greatest amount of water.
He mentioned the previous clashes over water in the mountain areas which left dead and injured people.
Solutions
The General Manager of National Water and Sanitation Authority in Rada'a said there are measures in place to stop this random digging for water but they need cooperation and support from security services. He also believes that the obvious solution is to stop qat growing and this, in turn, requires coordination between the ministries of water and agriculture, in order to convince people to abandon any expansion of qat cultivation.
However Minister Al-Iryani talked about alternative solutions such as persuading people to leave the mountains and live in the valleys. Recycling water and importing qat from Ethiopia are other possible solutions.