The spokesperson of the consultation committee on the water problem in the town, Ndiaye Dior, represents the townspeople when there are meetings with the authorities. He says:

This problem started at the beginning of December, when the taps were connected to a new drilling site, as the old one was on a groundwater table that was almost running dry. The problem is that the new site draws water from a very salty water table. The water can be black, bright orange or clear, but it’s always brackish.

The Senegalese water company that provides running water to Foundiougne told FRANCE 24 that the colour of the water was caused “by the water mixing with different types of sand, which can give it different colours”. Gorgui Mbaye, a local official, says that the salinity of the water, usually quite high, is due to “inlets of seawater that come into the water table. The level of salinity rises as the water table empties”.



"Frustrated residents are even fighting amongst themselves"



Dior explained how residents were now relying on temporary measures for clean water.

We are entirely dependent on the water brought by trucks. But this solution isn’t practical: why don't they put in place a filtering system to make the dirty water we have drinkable? Two people in the town have their own water filters that they bought themselves. They are selling 20 litres of clean water for 200 CFA francs (0.30 euros). It’s a good solution that should be made freely available for everyone. That would help solve a number of problems: first of all, the conflicts at the water trucks, where people get into fights while trying to fill their containers. Who gets water at the water truck is decided on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, which means that some people manage to get 10 or 20 litres of water, while others come away with only two.

To keep their place in the queue, residents leave the containers they are using to collect the water: petrol cans, buckets or bowls. Video sent by our Observers.

There are also health problems for the population in the town, who have been drinking salty water for many years. We have noticed that lots of residents have health problems like high blood pressure or cardio-vascular illnesses, which can be linked to consuming too much salt. Locals are really at the end of their tether. We don’t understand why it’s so difficult to provide clean water in 2018. To make sure our complaints were heard, we organised a protest on Saturday December 15.