Section:GDN 1N PaGe:24 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 30/7/2019 17:52 cYanmaGentaYellow
- The Guardian Wednesday 31 July 2019
(^24) World
El Salvador
Running on empty
Daily struggle for water
pushes families to leave
Nina Lakhani
Nejapa
J
ust after 6am Victor Funez
fi lls a three-gallon plastic
pitcher with water from
a tap in the cemetery,
balances it on his head and
trudges home, where his
wife waits to soak maize kernels to
make tortillas for breakfast.
The tap is the family’s only source
of water, so Funez, 38, makes the
journey along the dusty dirt road 15
to 20 times each day. “ It’s like this
every day, all day,” says his wife,
Bianca Ló pez, 46.
La Estación is a makeshift
community in Nejapa, a
municipality on the northern
outskirts of El Salvador’s capital.
The country has one of the highest
murder rates in the world, plagued
by warring gangs and security forces
who shoot to kill. Bloodshed andchronic unemployment have driven
wave after wave of migration, but
in recent years, widespread water
shortages have been fuelling unrest
and forced displacement.
“Marginali sed communities
struggle day to day to get access to
enough water. The whole country is
close to crisis,” says Silvia de Larios,
former director at the ministry of
environment and natural resources ,.
El Salvador is the most densely
populated country in Central
America and has the region’s
lowest water reserves. These are
fast depleting owing to the climate
crisis , pollution and unchecked
commercial exploitation. According
to one study, the country will run
out of water within 80 years unless
radical action is taken.
The water problem is exacerbated
by corporate interests, corruption
and vicious street gangs.
Local women have long used the
banks of the San Antonio river as anopen-air laundry. But the laundry
spot lies in Barrio 18 territory,
whereas La Estación is controlled by
the rival MS-13 gang. Crossing gang
boundaries can get you killed.
López’s only income comes from
washing her neighbour s’ clothes,
but she uses the tap and pitchers
rather than crossing the frontline :
“Going to the river is not worth my
life.”
Years of drought have prompted
water rationing across the country.
Yet most rainwater is lost because
of deforestation and 48% of what is
captured is lost through leaks.
Sources are running dry. The
Nejapa aquifer provides 40% ofthe capital’s water but its level has
dropped 20% in the past fi ve years.
However, rationing has not
aff ected Nejapa’s biggest water
guzzlers and alleged polluters: the
Coca-Cola bottling company and
sugar cane plantations.
At least 90% of El Salvador’s
surface water is contaminated by
sewage, agricultural and industrial
waste, according to studies. “There
are no rules, no sanctions, no
monitoring. It’s the poorest who
suff er most,” says De Larios.
Politicians have refused to
create an independent regulatory
system, which campaigners argue
would put human consumption
and sustainability above corporate
interests. André s McKinley, a water
and mining scholar from the Central
American University , says: “This is a
huge political issue; we must change
who controls water. That’s the war
we’re in.”
Esmeralda Cerritos, 29, a union
activist in La Estación, adds: “We’ve
been trying to get running water
for four years, but there’s always
another hurdle.”
Jeanne Rikkers, a violence
prevention expert with the NGO
Cristosal, says the water situation is
fertile ground for gang violence : “ As
water become increasingly critical,
gangs will likely become involved
in community confl icts as the state
is absent.”▼ Victor Funez and his daughter take
one of many trips to carry water home
from a tap in their local cemetery
PHOTOGRAPH: JUAN CARLOS/THE GUARDIAN‘We’ve been trying
to get running water
for four years’Esmeralda Cerritos
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