4 November 2008
Nairobi — Residents of Nairobi's Pumwani Estate, in the east of the capital, have lived with the foul smell of sewage for three years because a sewage line serving the estate bursts regularly, despite several attempts to repair it.
One resident, Fatuma Mohammed, spoke to IRIN on 4 November about her anguish:
"We no longer stay indoors because of the smell, we make sure we are out of our homes as often as we can; in fact it is terrible at night because you have no choice but to sleep.
"Our children are the most affected as they have regular coughs and vomiting; they have nowhere to play as the sewage is all over the place, every manhole in the estate is overflowing.
"Whenever we report to the city authorities that the sewer has burst again, they sometimes come and repair it, only for it to burst two or three days later, or sometimes they do not even come to check what the problem is.
"We have a big problem here; just recently we tried to organise ourselves to hold a demonstration and the authorities sent riot police to ensure we did not demonstrate. For how long are we going to live with this problem?
"Old people and children who cannot avoid the murky stuff often end up wading in it and some of the sewage is seeping into the lines that supply clean water - our fear is that the sewage is getting mixed up with clean water. Already many people are going to hospital with illnesses that we think have something to do with the sewage.
"We have even sent a delegation to our local councillor and the district administration but we have yet to see any real action being taken.
"If this sewer is not fixed permanently, we don't know the extent of the health risks we are being exposed to."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
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