By Elyas Ahmadi
They wait hours for a few barrels of water to carry to their homes; ten-year-old children, elderly men, women as old 70.
The private water supply company, Hedayat Tahiri, has been shutting off water to its customers for nine months.
Residents of the Asya Bini of Regression area in west Kabul, say the company has demanded customers pay 20,000 Afghanis per house to renew their contracts. Thousands can’t afford to pay and have lost their water. But they claim the company is breaching its contractual obligation to distribute water until government water pipes reach the area.
Tahmina, 10, waits in a long queue on a winding, narrow alley for a few barrels of water. It is 12:30 on a scorching summer day. She’s a third-grade student at Asya Bini school and she doesn’t dare leave the queue. “At 5:00 in the morning, my brother comes and takes a turn. When I get out of school at 9:00 am, I come to his place to continue taking the turn. At noon, I stand for my neighbor, he goes to eat lunch. Then I come and go to eat lunch. It’s hard, we must keep standing.”
Tahmina, 10/photo: Rukhshana media.
Every morning before dawn, Rahila hauls eight barrels on a wheelbarrow to one of Asya Bini’s reservoirs. She’s 45 and says she has to stand in line for nine hours. “I come at four or five in the morning, she says. “My turn comes at 2:00 pm or 3:00 pm in the afternoon.”
Shakila, a 37-year-old mother of four, says she has to wait just as long. Every morning she leaves her 6-month-old baby at home and rushes to place the barrels in line for her turn. After an hour, she asks people to take her turn so she can check on her baby for a few minutes. “My seven-year-old daughter stays with her. I tell someone to mind my place. I run to the house, feed the baby, and come back.”
Shakila’s family needs at least eight barrels of water every 24 hours. Her husband is a laborer and leaves the house every day hoping to find work. Shakila has been responsible for supplying water to the house for four months.
She says transferring eight barrels of water seemed impossible in the beginning. Now she does it every day.
women& men waiting for water/ photo: Rukhshana media
One woman, who doesn’t wish to be named, says she ran out of water 10 days ago and locked her two children inside so she could go out to search for some. While she was out, one of her children had an accident.
“I don’t know what happened, the little child’s hand was badly burned,” she says. “When my husband came in the evening, he was angry and hit me with his fist. I come looking for water, but while I am physically here, my heart is at home.”
Zahra is 68. She struggles with the physical and emotional pressure of standing for hours in queues then transporting heavy barrels of water home.
“This is our situation. Look, why should I come at this age for water?” she asks. “I have a lung problem myself; I get short of breath every moment. I have to wait for hours on these hot days.”
The water supply company Hedayat Taheri has stopped delivering to 2,500 families. Most go to a spring near Company Road mosques to try to fill their empty barrels.
Kabul is one of the most populated Afghan cities to suffer water scarcity. The previous government’s Ministry of Energy and Water reported that the city had 29 million cubic meters of water while water consumption was 31 million cubic meters.
Residents of Asya Bini say it usually falls to women and children to provide water. Mohammad Aman Sultani, 42, the representative of Nabowat Mosque, claims the water supply company has stopped local residents and aid organizations digging their own wells.
“The Taheri company has taken the people of this area hostage, shut off the water supply to them, and does not allow anyone to dig a well,” Sultani says. “Taheri wants people to renew their contracts by paying money.”
Meanwhile, 51-year-old Ramzan Ali Saibi, one of the religious scholars in Asya Bini, says he can’t understand the company’s actions. He often has no water for ablution or praying and has to rely on his two sons, aged 12 to 16, to find it.
“One of my sons has been absent from school for 45 days because of the water,” he says. “Now he is among those barred from school.”.
Salman Moahedi, 46, a county councilor of the area, told Rukhshana Media that the owner of the water supply company won’t give permission to dig wells or transfer another water supply company to the people.
“Sometimes he says that the Ministry of Energy and Water does not allow me,” Moahedi says. “Sometimes he says that the Ministry of Public Health does not allow us. In short, he is evading. He just wants people to renew the contract.”
The Taliban’s Ministry of Energy and Water declined to comment to Rukhshana Media, despite repeated requests. Earlier, spokesman Matiualla Abid told Deutsche Welle they had stopped companies that “illegally” dug deep wells and supplied water.
“The projects such as Shah and Aroos, and Shahtoot dam in Panjshir, God willing, will solve the problem water scarcity in Kabul city in the future.”
Rukhshana Media understands that the owner of the water supply company, Hedayat Taheri, left Afghanistan for Turkey on Thursday, June 15. He declined repeated requests for comment.
