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.
“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”, said resident, Fatuma Mohammed. “Our children are [...] have regular coughs and vomiting; they have nowhere to play as the sewage is all over the place. [...] 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. [...] Just recently we tried to organise ourselves to hold a demonstration and the authorities sent riot police”.
Source: IRIN, 04 Nov 2008
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