Open defecation, lack of toilets and poor sanitation in makeshift internally displaced persons (IDP) camps throughout Afghanistan are a health threat, particularly to children, health workers and aid agencies say. [A]t least 230,000 people are living in formal IDP camps and informal settlements where few sanitary, water and toilet facilities are available.
About 500 families (2,500 individuals) displaced from southern regions have set up shacks, tents and mud huts in Qambar on the western outskirts of Kabul. Most residents there are forced to defecate in the open. Some also use insecure pit latrines or dry vault toilets near their shacks. “In summer we suffer a lot from the stink, and the flies and mosquitoes which are attracted to the scattered faeces and dirt,” Akhtar Gul, an IDP at Qambar camp, told IRIN.
[...] Anne Garella, head of the Action contre la Faim (ACF) country mission, told [news agency] IRIN they had applied to build toilets and water points for the Qambar IDPs but had failed to get permission from the government. In January [2009] the government permitted ACF to provide drinking water to the Qambar IDPs for six months; ACF has been delivering two tankers of water a day.
“The number of IDPs in the camp is increasing every day and we are very concerned about their access to drinking water after June,” said Garella, adding: “A longer-term solution would be for the government to allow us to dig wells and build toilets there.”
The need for safe drinking water will increase in the coming months and the government is expected to extend Qambar’s water delivery deadline to beyond June [2009], according to aid workers.
Source: IRIN, 23 Apr 2009
