By Ernest Waititu
BBC Focus On Africa magazine
Sanitation in Ethiopia’s capital city leaves a lot to be desired – and it is the poor who are most vulnerable as a result.
In a small shack made of iron sheets and pieces of clothing in the slums of Addis Ababa live the Alemu family – Abiy, Marasit Bishaw, and the couple’s three-year-old son and 25-day-old baby daughter Yanit.
And just a few metres from their one-room home is a mass of sewage and garbage, mixed with the carcasses of dead chickens and cow and goat skulls.
The Alemus live near the gully where the Kabena river used to meander gracefully through the Ethiopian capital.
But the river is now full of the city’s waste, and a stench of sewage is the first thing that hits.
During the rainy season, the filth and sewage from the skyscrapers up the hill flows freely onto the floor of the house.
A sewer by the entrance jets waste water incessantly, sending a gush of greying liquid down into the river.
The situation is typical of many in the slums of Ethiopia’s capital, and highlights a desperate need for clean water.
Defecating outside
The government is aware of the problem, admitting that dilapidated sewers, a lack of toilet facilities and general poor sanitation in the city are some of the leading causes of disease and death in the country.
The World Health Organization estimates that 64% of people in Ethiopia defecate in the open – although this is down from 91% in 1990.
Water is critical. With a new baby, the Alumus’ household water needs have increased – they spend the equivalent of 10 US cents a day to buy 50 litres of water which has to be fetched from a kilometre across the river.
But even the water they buy may not be clean enough to keep the family healthy. Burst pipes or a lack of constant pressure in the pipes can contaminate the water.
And the jerry cans used to fetch the water are often unclean, says Gadissa Hailu, a project officer for Water and Sanitation for Africa Medical and Research Foundation (Amref).
“People need to be educated on how to take good care of the water they fetch to avoid contamination,” he says.
Worryingly, though, the Alemus do not boil the water since they believe that it is clean simply because it is piped.
But they fear for the health of their children, especially the infant.
Yosef Asfau, a general practitioner working at a hospital in the city, says that the constant stench hanging over the house is likely to cause rhinitis (allergy of the nose), sinusitis (allergy of the sinus) and an even more serious condition called bronchial asthma.
Just next to the Alemu household, young men openly bathe in the filthy water, scooping it with their hands. For those even worse off, there is no way of accessing piped water – the river is their only option to attempt to keep clean.
No man’s land
Further downstream lies a settlement called Gorgorios. At the bottom of a quick-sloping hill, numerous tributaries of sewage have joined the river and turned it into a raging and black mass of water.
Here no-one has a toilet.
Children and adults relieve themselves in the open by the river, adding to the furious flow of filth that is carried to other communities downstream.
Endale Asmare, a lab technician with Amref in the slum, says that waterborne diseases such as typhoid and parasites that cause dysentery consistently show up in his laboratory tests – a clear manifestation of poor sanitation in the area.
In the town of Kechene, a little further downstream, is Amleworke Wordfa – an 80-year-old woman who shoulders the difficult task of raising her four grandchildren alone.
A year ago she lost one of her granddaughters to illness resulting from contaminated water.
“It was so hard for me to see her die,” she says.
“She was so beautiful.”
Now Wordfa attempts to boil all the water she gives to the younger two of her four surviving grandchildren, who are under five years of age.
Nonetheless, fuel to do so is scarce. At times she just trusts their immunity, acquired through time, to keep them from getting sick.
The government says the situation is steadily improving: regional heath authorities are reporting better access to sanitation, while 30,000 key health workers are expected to be deployed in 2009 to promote personal hygiene as part of a campaign by the health department.
The UN has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation, and Amref is working on a plan to provide water and sanitation facilities to the people of Kechene.
But as long as extreme poverty in this country persists, families like the Alemus and the Wordfas will continue to live in a filthy no man’s land on the banks of Addis Ababa’s rivers.
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Ernest Waititu is the editor-in-chief of the Afrikanews group based in Nairobi.
14 thoughts on “Sewage and garbage fill Addis Ababa streets (BBC)”
what is new?That is all we know.Open field defecation is every where.What is hurting the country is the cost of living.When the country develops every thing will be alright.The gov’nt and the people of Ethiopia should work hard together to change the country.
I didn’t notice much of this when I was there a couple months ago. I saw beautiful buildings and clean streets.
Anonymous yo saw that and he saw the other.Both of you are are not wrong however anyone who can see both sides are RIGHT!!It is always best to learn how to see different perspective/view of every thing.
#2 yene wendim be million yemikoterewin ye miskinun menoria silalayehew yihonal
what do you expect from ppls,TPLF, who used to live in the bush and washed ones in a month.
Hay #2, sometimes images are abstract for some people, b/c they don’t belive the truth. why don’t you go back and try to find the right image insted of diging the wrong one
Fasil:
You are an idiotic individual. You are bent to hate unnecesarily. Was Addis any better when it was under those who lived in town as oposed to the Woyanes who did not enjoy 1 or 2 bathing a week? Denbara, you are filthy as well and you are bringing filth to ur society. Addis will never get better with people like you around. Confess your hate-sin and apologize to the public.
Mezgebe Berhe
Dear Mezgebe the problem you didn’t know addis before this primitive and savage TPLF. If you r ember even when Gase Abera mola tried to clean addis you and the midget meles opposed his humanitarian action and gave him hard time this the fact every ethiopian knows except you and your alike dirty ppls. Still TPLF don’t know how to clean after themselves except destroying what ever comes in front of them. In general you are parasites for Ethiopia. And of course you are the most hated groups in the country. You don’t know how to work and you don’t let others also to work. You have a culture of begging and stealing.And for the name you used Mezgebe you can’t be because you are from a cursed TPLF .Try to you use your own name and identity don’t be ashamed of yourself.
What is shameful is, when I hear Tigraian-Weyanies bragging in habesha coffee shops how clean, beautiful Mekele and Axum have come. Some die hard Weyanies even will tell with out shame that “Mekele will be the best city to live in the next 10 years”. What the weyanies donot want to tell you is, the sad life of millions of Ethiopians in the urban centers of Ethiopia such as Addis.
Addis is becoming fast the worst city to live in Africa. The only place that is getting better and better by the day in the city are the area of the city where Alamoudi – the Woyannie Arab – and the Woyannie’s invested heavily.
BRAVO FASIL !!!!What you say every thing is correct!!!; you know we didn’t hear the name of “GASH Abera”really Is some body know where he is !!!.IS he return back to USA.
YOU know after 2005 election Wanyne revange A.A.as a all ,but when there time is up where they want to go Mekele NO!!! but histoy will show us resently !!!!the people WIN !!!
Fassil;
You, “stonehead”, since its establishment Addis was just like the what was reported.
Do we need somebody to tell us we usually defacate outside!!!
I don’t think, you will dare to tell us it is TPLF who taught us!!!
Generally speaking, our hygiene is by any standards must be the lowest of all. We don’t have any concept of sanitation…
Though, nowadays, things getting better it is not in the pace we expect it!!!!
For the other staff, specially for the beggar thing it is the Amhara beggars that filled the streets of Addis!!!!
Take the prostitutes — Majority of them are Amharas!!! Though, undeniably there are Tigrayans as well!!!
We, in Addis have a group of rascals that do the most dirty jobs —- called — KOMCHE — they themselves are dirties… They don’t even change the dirty–muddy sort of cloth they were in the country side while in Addis….
Now lotteries are sold by these dirty people —- all from the Amhara—-
The funniest thing is all wear similar clothes it looks like a uniform for the KOMCHES!!!
Ask any one in Addis about Komche!!! Not google Ha Ha Ha!!!!
Tigre or Amhara are the same shits—- beggars, bandits, murderers, prostitutes, the stupidest of all, arrogants, — We, the southerners are always ashamed of you!!!!!
South Ethiopia is the best!!!!
Fasil:
How did you determine that I did not know Addis before Woyane? Ask Elias whether the name Mezgebe Berhe is my real name or not. It is you who gave us the name Fasil and no more. You are Beg (a lamb)who follows and not reason. You sound boasty and pompus out of a ballon of a stinky gas. Leave Ethiopia for Ethiopians, Fasilino! I can guess where you are coming from.
If you are an ethiopian you must have begged sometime or you have some beggars in your respective area. Unless other wise you tell me you have no beggar in Eritrea, or to give you the benefit of the doubt, you have no beggar in Oromo or Amhara or any other region. My God cover your nakedness.
You are waste of time, indeed!
I agree with wandeferw that the people will win and it will happen soon. But we will make sure some idiot will not take the power. The power will be in the hands of those who are not bent to pay a dollar for dollar, a stick for a stick.
Dear Berhe:
I am happy that after 17 years you savages understand that ethiopian ppls eventually win and live by their own will not by ignorants,dirty and begger TPLF. It is a very good thing to know that your arrogance prevails and you are shaken inside and u can’t even try to hide it like before. Every body will be paid accordingly. Ethiopians are very patient and wise ppls. They showed ,to the savage woyanes,this quality during the 2005 election.Back to your comment:You asked me how i know that you don’t have prior knowledge of addis. It is easy you were banned not to enter addis because of your begging culture. For the fact if you see addis most of the beggars can be identified where they come from by their language and hair style.but my point is you barbaric TPLF make it worse than what it was before through u r stealing and begging culture and you spread HIV in alarming rate. I know for a fact how many TPLF dogs died of HIV and how it was an issue in u r so called “GIMGEMA”. So you ppls are stil the most hated and unproductive ppls in ethiopia. PPLs with out any happines and full of vengeance.
Criminal minds don’t think good for the community. Do the tplfwoyanae crimefamily care about such big a problem?
When the right time comes, the tplfwoyanae members of the crimefamilies shall rot in jail for every crime they committed.