Elder: Water crisis on Banaba is a human rights issue

Ahead of a state visit from the Fiji Prime Minister to Kiribati this week, a Banaban elder says a food and water crisis on the island is a violation of basic human rights.

The head of the Banaban Council of Elders, Roubena Tekiana, says the island has been without water and basic food imports for over three months.

Much of Kiribati has been in the grips of a severe drought for months with UNICEF raising concerns about malnutrition and illness.

But the island of Banaba has been through water crises for each of the past three years.

In 2021 the Kiribati government installed two desalination units on Banaba but both have broken down, forcing the islanders to rely on water collected off roof tops that, one Banaban told RNZ Pacific, are made from asbestos.

While the Kiribati government responded with a short-term intervention in 2021, Tekiana said this has not been enough. He said access to water and food are both basic human needs and human rights. “Assistance from the Kiribati government has fallen far short of the minimum requirement for sustainable food and water supplies. Our community is suffering and we do not have the resources to sustain ourselves.

“Our situation on Banaba is very dead now. There are no cargoes to the island. We are in a very bad situation.”

Tekiana said both the Fijian and Kiribati governments must step up to ensure the survival of the Banaban population, both on Banaba and across the diaspora. In Fiji, the semi-autonomous governance structure on Rabi, the Rabi Council of Leaders, established under the Banaban Settlement Act, has been dissolved for over a decade.