Twenty years ago, the hope for potable water in villages near Port St Johns was sky-high after the municipality provided communal taps -- but for the past seven years, the taps have been bone dry.

In Chwebeni village outside Port St Johns in Eastern Cape, children have started developing red rashes and are losing their hair, conditions their mothers and grandmothers say are linked to the water the children have to drink and wash in.

The village's women, some elderly, collect the water daily, navigating a narrow path down a steep hill carrying old paint and oil buckets and a pair of gumboots they share.

There is a stench at the water hole they share with cattle and pigs and the ground is slippery with dung. One woman, wearing the shared gumboots, fills everyone's buckets before slipping off the boots, and then the group, buckets on their heads, slowly start their walk back to the village.

"We are very worried about the water," said Nosalathiso Phetshana, the vice-chairperson of the Chwebeni Community Development Forum. "There is no other water we can use."

She said they had tried to raise the health condition of the children with authorities but to no avail.

Anke Hannemann, a vet from Germany who lives in the area, said the water situation was worrying. "I have seen the children covered in a red rash and their hair falling out. It is...