Mudzi, Zimbabwe — Side-by-side with fellow male villagers, Enia Tambo uses a white 25-liter plastic bucket to dig out mounds of sand in the Vhombozi River, in Mudzi district located in Zimbabwe's Mashonaland East Province.
The woman, in her late 50s, is digging to reach the water that is lying deep beneath the soil.
The El Niño-induced drought has such a severe impact on the rural area, which is located nearly 230 kilometers east of Harare, the nation's capital, that finding water is a daily battle.
Tambo, wearing a yellow T-shirt emblazoned with a portrait of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, had a red, white, black and yellow cloth wrapped around her waist and a white head tie over her head to shield her from the sun as she joined a group of sweaty young men using shovels digging the dry well.
An obviously thirsty herd of cattle, with their equally thirsty gang of small herd boys, waited in the midst of the dry river, hoping to quench their thirst in the scotching heat of this impoverished Zimbabwean district.
In the worst months of the El Niño-induced drought that severely affected Zimbabwe, more often than not, Mudzi villagers dig with their bare hands to access water in dry streams and wells, including the Vhombozi River.
Thanks to the El Niño-induced drought, villagers like Tambo have to do this for themselves and their cattle as they struggle to find the precious liquid.
Desperate for the life-saving resource, Tambo said they have no choice but to scramble for it, competing with their own cattle.
"We have a serious water challenge. We ask for help, at least with water taps and wells. We don't have a dam or any functioning water source. We drink from the same source with our cattle, both women and men, as we find water by digging in the river sand to reach the water below," 59-year-old Tambo, hailing from Mudzi's Nyamudandara village, told IPS.
No Boreholes, No Taps, Add to Burden
It never rains but pours problems for the many destitute villagers here. Once they have collected the water from deep in the riverbeds, they also have to struggle walking long distances balancing buckets of water on their heads to their homes.
Batanai Mutasa, a climate change expert doubling as the communications officer for the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association, pinned the blame on souring temperatures for the drying up of rivers, dams and boreholes.
"The El Nino heat is to blame for the drying up of boreholes and rivers. The changing weather patterns triggering floods, very hot conditions and poor rains are also resulting in acute food shortages," Mutasa told IPS.
Reena Ghelani, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Climate Crisis Coordinator for the El Niño Response, commented after her recent visit to South Africa that the April/May harvests had failed, resulting in more than 20 million people experiencing food insecurity, with more than a million children at risk of severe acute malnutrition.
"In the face of such challenges, governments and regional bodies have stepped up, and partners have supported their efforts, including through emergency allocations from the Central Emergency Response Fund (OCHA Financing and Partnerships) and insurance payouts (through the African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group). But more needs to be done," Ghelani said
In April this year, Elias Magosi, the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), went on record in the media lamenting the poor rains across the region.
"The 2024 rainy season has been a challenging one, with most parts of the region experiencing negative effects of the El Niño phenomenon characterized by the late onset of rains," Magosi said.
According to the SADC block, nearly 68 million people across the region, including in Zimbabwe, where many like Tambo are living in impoverished villages like Nyamudandara in Mudzi, are suffering the effects of an El Niño-induced drought.
Child Labor, Sexual Exploitation Increase
In such poor Zimbabwean villages, even underage children have had to quit their education as they help their parents and guardians find the precious liquid in the face of the grueling drought.
Some women have claimed that they face sexual abuse from powerful rural men controlling the only available water sources, where the women have claimed they are forced to trade sex for water.
"Men demand sex from us before they allow us to fetch water and our children have dropped out of school to help us find water daily," a Mudzi woman who refused to be named fearing victimization told IPS.
Yet the water crisis headache is an ages-old problem in the Zimbabwean remote districts like Mudzi, according to villagers like 52-year-old Collen Nyakusawuka hailing from Mudzi's Nyamudandara village.
But villagers have tried times without number seeking help from government authorities.
"This water problem for us in this village began in 1980 and to this day we still suffer without water, at times lodging our complaints with authorities with no help coming from them," said Nyakusawuka.
Residents of Nyamudandara village in Mudzi, such as 30-year-old Freddy Nyamudandara, have claimed that the water crisis in their community has gotten out of hand and that many people like him are unable to cope.
"We have a real serious water challenge, which has worsened this year. We really need help with water for ourselves and our cattle for we don't have a dam and the only available boreholes have malfunctioned," Nyamudandara told IPS.
Borehole Promises Not Yet Realized
In Mudzi district, Kudzai Madamombe, the Medical District Officer says Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised to drill boreholes to assist the angry water-starved villagers, saying, "President Mnangagwa came up with the Presidential borehole-drilling scheme through which he said he will drill 70 boreholes for people in Mudzi."
But so far, the community has not benefitted from the government scheme.
In its bid to fend off the mounting water crisis across Zimbabwe's remote areas like Mudzi, UNICEF has also intervened.
Progress Katete, the UNICEF Nutritional Officer, said her organization has appealed for over USD 84 million to address the drought crisis that has ravaged districts like Mudzi.
"UNICEF has been supporting the government in the drilling of boreholes as well as putting in place piped water schemes because, as you can see, some of the communities--the women and men in the community--have to walk very long distances to fetch water and sometimes it's not even safe water. In some instances, school-going children miss school because they have to go fetch water for the family," Katete told IPS.
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Mudzi district's Ward 17 councilor, Kingston Shero, noted that there wasn't enough funding for every village to get a borehole. "Due to inadequate resources, just a few villages have managed to get help from the council with boreholes."
The El Niño event, which helped fuel a spike in global temperatures and extreme weather around the world, is expected to return to La Niña conditions later this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Ghelani said that the region should receive normal to above-average rains in October-December, which could boost the planting season and help with recovery but could also lead to localized flash foods--especially on dry land--and pest infestations. And without adequate support, families who've sold their livestock and assets won't be able to recover.
In an appeal for funding, she said: "We must provide support now to save lives and alleviate suffering, rather than wait for the crisis to deepen."
For Tambo, until the rains return, her daily grind will involve digging river beds and hoping to get enough water to drink for herself and her family.
IPS UN Bureau Report
