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Scroll down to article: WATER AS A WEAPON OF WAR IN MILITARY CONFLICTS
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THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER
Realising the Human Rights to Water & Sanitation: Handbook – UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Safe Drinking Water & Sanitation:
http://www.righttowater.info/wp-content/uploads/BOOK-1-INTRO-WEB-LR.pdf
Several international human rights treaties refer explicitly to the importance of water and sanitation (separately or together) in realising human rights, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)6 , the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)7 , and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).8 In 2002, the Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the treaty body responsible for monitoring State compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted General Comment No. 15 on the human right to water.
CEDAW– Article 14 – 2. (h) To enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply, transport and communications.
UN FACT SHEET – THE RIGHT TO WATER - http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet35en.pdf
Each year more than 30 million people flee their homes as a result of conflict or natural disasters and more than 200 million people are affected by natural hazards.17 In an emergency, displaced persons face particular challenges to access safe drinking water and sanitation, which can have life-threatening consequences.18 Displaced persons are also particularly vulnerable to discrimination, racism and xenophobia, which can further interfere with their ability to secure safe drinking water and sanitation. Refugee and IDP camps around the world, particularly when displacement is protracted, are often characterized by dilapidated and overcrowded conditions, in which there is inadequate provision of basic services such as safe drinking water and sanitation. Poor sanitation and lack of access to
safe drinking water in these camps often lead to the spread of waterborne diseases, including cholera.
When women and children have to fetch water at some distance from the camps, they are at risk of harassment, threats and sexual violence. Women and children might also be asked to provide sexual favours in exchange for safe drinking water. Even when sanitation facilities are available in camps, these often do not take into account the specific needs of women, children, old persons or persons with disabilities. In many countries, IDPs and refugees living in camps have less water than the general population, with many of them surviving on two to three litres a day. Refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs in urban areas fare little better. Often unable in practice or because of their legal status to live in adequate accommodation, many do not have safe drinking water or sanitation either.
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http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/05/u-n-decries-water-as-weapon-of-war-in-military-conflicts/
Water as Weapon of War in
Military Conflicts
By Thalif Deen
UNITED
NATIONS, May 19 2014 (IPS) - The United Nations, which is
trying to help resolve the widespread shortage of water in the developing
world, is faced with a growing new problem: the use of water as a weapon of war
in ongoing conflicts.
The privatisation of water in Egypt and its diversion to
the wealthy was a major factor in the “Arab Spring” uprising. Picture here is
the Nile River in Egypt.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.
The
most recent examples are largely in the Middle East and Africa, including Iraq,
Egypt, Israel (where supplies to the occupied territories have been shut
off) and Botswana.
Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over reports that water supplies in the besieged
Syrian city of Aleppo were deliberately cut off by armed groups for eight days,
depriving at least 2.5 million people of access to safe water for drinking and
sanitation.
“Preventing
people’s access to safe water is a denial of a fundamental human right,” he
warned, pointing out that “deliberate targeting of civilians and depriving them
of essential supplies is a clear breach of international humanitarian and human
rights law.”
In
the four-year Syrian civil war,
water is being used as a weapon by all parties to the conflict, including the
government of President Bashar al-Assad and the multiple rebel groups fighting
to oust him from power.
The
conflict has claimed the lives of over 150,000 people and displaced nearly nine
million Syrians.
The
violation of international humanitarian law in Syria includes torture
and deprivation of food and water.
Maude Barlow, who represents both the Council of Canadians and Food and Water Watch, told
IPS water is being increasingly and deliberately used a a weapon of war in
recent and ongoing conflicts.
During
the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Mesopotamian Marshes were drained, she
said.
Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein drained them further during the 1990s in retribution
against Shias who hid there and the Marsh Arabs (Ma’dan) who protected them,
she pointed out.
The
privatisation of water in Egypt and its diversion to the wealthy was a major
factor in the “Arab Spring” uprising, said Barlow, a former senior advisor on
water to the president of the General Assembly back in 2008/2009.
Thousands
suddenly had no access to clean water and “thirst protests” were partial
catalysts for the large uprising.
Also,
more than four decades of Israeli occupation have made it impossible to develop
or maintain infrastructure for water in Gaza, causing the contamination of
drinking water and many deaths, she declared.
Barlow
also said Botswana used water as a weapon against the Kalahari bushmen in an
attempt to force them out of the desert, where diamonds had been discovered.
In
2002, the government smashed their only major water borehole, a terrible act
that was only overturned in court years later, she noted.
Anand
Grover and Catarina de Albuquerque, two U.N. experts on water and sanitation,
said interference with water supplies even in the context of an ongoing conflict
is entirely unacceptable.
They
said the city of Aleppo has had intermittent access to water from the beginning
of May 2014, with a total cut in supply on May 10, resulting in many, perhaps a
million people, left without access to safe water and sanitation.
This
affected homes, hospitals and medical centres, the two U.N. experts said.
The
cuts appeared to come about as a result of deliberate interference with the
water supply, with conflicting allegations suggesting that some armed
opposition groups and the government of Syria have both been responsible at
different times and to differing degrees, they pointed out.
Barlow
told IPS the al-Assad government’s denial of clean water is consistent with its
history of using water to punish its enemies and reward its friends.
In
2000, the Syrian regime deregulated land use and gave vast quantities of land
and water to its wealthy allies, severely diminishing the water table and
driving nearly one million small farmers and herders off the land, she added.
Ironically
and tragically, many of them migrated to Aleppo where they are being targeted
again, said Barlow,
She
also said water has also been deployed as a weapon of “class war.”
Many
thousands of inner city residents unable to pay their water bills have had
their water services cut in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States, and more
recently, as a result of Europe’s austerity programme, in Spain, Greece and
Bulgaria.
“Water
as a weapon of war is a strong argument to governments and the U.N. they must
make real the human right to water and sanitation, regardless of other
conflicts taking place,” said Barlow.
Meanwhile,
since 1990, almost two billion people globally have gained access to improved
sanitation, and 2.3 billion have gained access to drinking water from improved
sources, according to a new U.N. report released last week.
The
joint report by the U.N. Children’s Fund and
the World Health Organisation said about
1.6 billion of these people have piped water connections in their homes or
compounds.
Titled
“Progress on
Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2014 Update,” the report said more
than half of the global population lives in cities, and urban areas are still
better supplied with improved water and sanitation than rural ones.
“But
the gap is decreasing.”
In
1990, more than 76 percent of the people living in urban areas had access to
improved sanitation, as opposed to only 28 percent in rural ones.
By
2012, 80 percent urban dwellers and 47 percent rural ones had access to better
sanitation.
“Despite
this progress,” the report warned, “sharp geographic, socio-cultural, and
economic inequalities in access to improved drinking water and sanitation
facilities still persist around the world.”