the difficult access to drinking water in the capital

Once green and fertile plains. In Cameroon, the desert is inexorably gaining ground, after several years without rainfall, or almost. With, as a consequence, the difficulty of finding drinking water. In Douala, the economic capital of the country, there are always crowds here: a water point, where the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods come to get supplies. With their car, they travel miles to come. “We live in peripheral neighborhoods and the water is not drinkable there, says a Cameroonian. We prefer to travel to get drinking water here.”

“It’s a fight”

In front of the taps, we get busy, often at dawn, and it’s very often the rush. “Drinking water points are extremely rare. When there is a point like this, everyone rushes. You see the difficulties people have to tap here, it’s a fight, it’s a fightlaments a Cameroonian. Drinking water in Douala is like a treasure.”