A crowd of people wait around a well in Zimbabwe. Video published December 3 2016.

Zimbabwe is one of the poorest countries in the world and it is also prone to extreme drought. The effect on agriculture has been disastrous, and the southern African country has been in a state of natural disaster since February 2016. As if that weren’t enough, for the past few years, the country has been engulfed in a severe economic crisis caused by hyperinflation. This has only contributed to the already high rates of poverty.Public utilities in Zimbabwe are already unreliable. However, the difficult economic situation has meant that many people are unable to pay their water bills. In turn, municipalities have been unable to pay the public utilities companies that provide water. The result is that, in many towns and cities, water has been partially or totally shut off — and that’s when the water hustlers start working. These traders illegally take advantage of the void left by public services to make money. Some hawk small bottles of water on the street for about 50 euro cents, while those who are lucky enough to own wells sell 20-litre containers. What they’re doing is illegal, but there aren’t real police checks.Owning a well in an urban setting is a sign of privilege in Zimbabwe. The installation alone costs at least 1,400 euros. With water selling for about 20 litres per euro, well-owners can rake in the cash quickly. According to one of our Observers, a family of five uses about 60 litres of water a day. This makes for a substantial expense to the family budget, especially when 80% of the population is unemployed and 70% live below the poverty line There are also people known as well "thieves", who take over wells that they don’t own and start selling the water, according to our Observer in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.