Protesters in northern Mexico demand restoration of water supply
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, June 18 (EFE).- Dozens of inhabitants Friday demonstrated outside the State Human Rights Commission office in Valle de Juárez in northern Mexico, demanding the prompt restoration of the water supply.
The protesters said they had not received water supply for seven months despite being billed for the service.
It had affected basic activities, including food and hygiene, they added.
The demonstrators carried banners reading, “They charge us for the vital liquid that we do not have.”
They also shouted slogans “We want water, water for the people” and “We do not want promises, we want water.”
They then entered the offices of the central water and sanitation board and the rural water sanitation board and filed a formal complaint.
“We have had this problem for a year. We are without water and it is necessary for health, the children go to school without bathing, and more water is consumed because people have to buy jugs,” Ángela Hacher, one of the protesters, told EFE.
“There are many neighborhoods that have a water shortage, the wells are not enough, there is no water,” she added.
Another demonstrator, Guadalupe Núñez, told EFE that although the amount of water they receive varies from day to day, usually there is no supply or only supplied in the morning or at night.
She said that she had never seen such a drought before.
And given the high temperatures, which sometimes cross 40 degrees Celsius, the elderly and children suffer the most.
“The water pressure is very low, very low. Several towns have this problem. Every summer it is the same situation, many people do not have access to tinacos (water tanks),” said another protester, Teresa Estrada.
The North American Drought Monitor has classified Ciudad Juárez as “abnormally dry” for the second year.
This year, 95.3 percent of the northern region has been affected by drought, the National Water Commission said. EFE
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