Residents of Dokorty community along Wilkinson Road back of Indian Temple have resorted to using contaminated water that flows with piles of garbage and carcasses of dead dogs, chicken and sewage to drink, launder and bath.
The community is cramped with small shacks made of iron sheets and pieces of hard board. Atop the hill from where the community is located down to the Aberdeen creek, one can make out tall buildings and other structures near completion. Yet the stench of sewage and garbage spat out by some of the giant buildings is the first thing that hits you.
Burst pipes oozing and flooding Wilkinson Road wasting purified water at random from Guma Valley Water Company is a length of complexities. Without repairs, the road and nearby avenues are flooded with the water that got burst from pipes and drainages without culverts, making the environment unhealthy.
An estimated population of 5,000 people are residing within the community and their only source of fetching water is a nearby drainage, and a spring of water that oozes from the underground rocks and flows down the hill, said a resident of the community Mohamed Kamara.
“Life in this community is very difficult, as some families spend hours to fetch water alone for domestic use, and most often the water is unsafe for domestic use and the Government pretend to be unaware of this problem” he lamented.
Kamara intimated that, household water needs have increased in the community drastically, as some families spend Le 5,000 to buy water alone in a single day, as a single five gallon container is now sold for Le 1000.00 by wheel pullers in dirty jerry cans, with free delivery to customers at their doors, but even the water the community buys may not be clean enough to keep families healthy.
He noted that people need to be educated on how to take care of the water they fetch, at the drainage, to avoid contamination, he says that what worries most families is that they do not even have time to boil the water, since they believe the water is clean from the look.
A mother of six, Mama Masa also told this press in an interview that, the stench and piles of garbage coupled with a septic tank that waste its contents on the drainage that flows on the ground floors direct in to her house is a looming disaster,
She added that the sewage and piles of garbage that flows from a huge building close to the Guinean Embassy situated above the community and the rotten waste in the river below causes her children to contract common cold, cholera and diarrhea on a weekly basis.
She disclosed that, there is no way to access pipe borne water in the community, as streets taps are limited and always over crowded along Wilkinson Road, the drainage that flows is the only option to get water for domestic use with ease.
At the bottom of the community, lies a settlement called Thompson Bay located at a quick slopping hill, numerous tributaries of the sewage and piles of garbage have joined the flows to the Aberdeen creek and turned it in to a raging black mass of water.
The community lacks toilets, children and adult relieve themselves in the open, adding to the furious flow of filth that is carried to other communities down the Aberdeen creek is a clear manifestation of poor sanitation in the area.
A water and sanitation officer in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation James Abdulai disclosed to Awoko that, constant stench hanging over houses in the Dokorty Community causes serious respiratory infection and likely to cause rhinitis ( allergy to the nose), sinusitis (allergy to the sinus) and even more serious conditions called bronchial asthma, the WATSAN officer told me.
A lab technician Mohamed Kamara working in the community says that he commonly receives patients suffering from waterborne disease such as typhoid and parasites and amoeba that causes dysentery, diarrhea, because they are the frequent cases that are reported to his lab.
Residents of the Dokorty community and Thompson Bay are calling on Government and humanitarian organizations to come to their rescue with the provision of pipe born water and latrines before an outbreak of diseases occurs within the community.