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Canal of Tama Island is full of pollution and disease and officials are ignoring it
Land Center for Human Rights has received complaints from the residents of Tama Island province of Sohag who were harmed by the lack of coverage of the irrigation canal where hundreds of houses are located on each side endangering the population especially children of sinking in the canal water that also eposes them to many diseases because of the dumping of wastes and dead animals because of the absence of Places to shed remnants of the village and some people are using the canal as drainage for their homes because of the lack of safe sanitation, leading to contamination of drinking water making a lot of the village people depend on underground water.
The people assert that the canal full of contaminated water that is used as irrigation water for their land and drinking water for their livestock causes their plantations and animals with lot of diseases and lead to the deterioration of health conditions in the village and the infection with infectious diseases in light of the deteriorating health situation and treatment in the village's health unit, despite efforts by the Local Society Development Association to reassure the island to cover the canal but the Ministry of Environment neglected their demands without self-responsibility and role in protecting the rights of citizens and positive intervention to stop the violation of their life and health conditions.
LCHR asserts that this problem is a violation of the rights of citizens in the countryside especially the right to justice in the distribution of clean drinking water and adequate irrigation and drinking as well as the right to safe sanitation to all villages where more than 90% of the rural villages are suffering of the lack of sanitation and security because of the mixing of drinking water and irrigation water with drainage water leading to the spread of diseases, especially kidney failure and hepatitis.
LCHR points to what is being done by government agencies of ignoring and neglecting the rights of citizens to enjoy their economic and social rights is a violation to the international human rights charters and the Egyptian constitution which provided for ensuring the state of health and social ervices for citizens.
The Center presents the complaint of the residents and the Local Society Development Association in Tama Island to the local officials and the Ministry of Irrigation and Environment to issue their decision to cover the canal to in order to reassure the lives and health of the Island's residents and maintain the pressure on officials to implement the demands of the people so as to ensure their health and the environment.
It also demands that the institutions of civil society unite in solidarity with the demands of the people of the island of reassurance to stop the violation of their conditions of health, social and economic rights and to support their safe and dignified life.
For more information, please contact the Center