Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Fight for sanitation a fight for dignity in DR Congo

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From crouching over a small hole with a sheet for privacy to defecating in the open air, for millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo going to the toilet is a daily act of misery.


The UN has estimated more than 2.4 billion people worldwide are in a similar situation, with Sunday’s World Toilet Day planned to raise awareness.


The vast majority of DR Congo’s more than 70 million residents do not have access to “improved” toilets — latrines, sewerage or cesspits that hygienically separate human waste from human contact, according to the United Nations children’s agency Unicef.


The problem has become even more pressing this year as the huge African country wrestles with a resurgence of cholera.


Known as a “dirty hands disease” for the way in which faecal germs are transmitted, there have been more than 44,000 suspected cases of cholera and nearly 900 deaths so far this year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) figures.


In the capital Kinshasa, the quality of toilets varies greatly depending on social status — islands of wealth thrive in the city of 10 million amid an ocean of poverty.


Running water and clean toilets are the norm in Gombe, a wealthy district home to the presidential palace, embassies, ministries, business headquarters, expats and the city’s wealthiest citizens.


But it is a very different story in the other 25 districts of ‘Kin-la-Belle’ (Kin the Beautiful), as Kinshasa was once known — and which some locals now derisively call ‘Kin-la-Poubelle’ (Kin the Rubbish Bin).


In the district of Matete, Junior, 25, does not complain much about the toilet block built in the yard, away from the family house.


There is no running water, but it does have a tap and a bucket to clean the toilet, as well as an adjoining shower with white tile walls and an only slightly blackened ceramic floor.


“It’s not luxury, but it’s a bit clean,” said Junior.


Conditions are very different for neighbours living on the edge of a rubbish dump just a few streets away.


Here, a clean, decent flushing toilet only exists in dreams.


“We suffer here. If it rains, it floods the slab. The toilets overflow. The waste floods into the house,” said a young father.


“Sooner or later, there will be people who get cholera. For the moment, we suffer from typhoid,” says theology student Nadine Bondo.


— AFP


Samir Tounsi


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