Record 137 000 migrants cross Mediterranean
unreliable sources. That price was difficult for many unemployed slum residents. The machines sell the same for half a shilling – and it is treated and safe to drink.
“We will have more and more people accessing water in a more dignified manner,” Gichuki said, standing beside one of the new machines, as long lines of women waited to fill cans full of water, heavy loads they must then carry back home.
“The people in the informal settlements will improve in terms of their health standards and they will also spend less money in terms of water services,” he added.
Residents load money onto the water smart cards at a nearby kiosk or via payments sent on a mobile phone – a common system of payment in Kenya, which pioneered the sending of cash via phones – then tapping into the machine how many litres they want to buy.
The machines are operated by local youth and women groups, who earn 40% of the profits as an incentive to ensure they stay running and the system is not vandalised.
Now with the new machines and water points, the governments hopes there will be less reason to damage the pipes.
Lack of efficient sewerage and toilets mean water sources in the slums are often polluted, with diarrhoea common. Over 80 people died in a recent outbreak of cholera.
Kenya’s slums earned a grim reputation for “flying toilets” – when people defecate into plastic bags due to a lack of other facilities they just hurl it somewhere else into the shanty town. — AFP A RECORD 137 000 people made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe in the first half of 2015, most of them fleeing war, conflict and persecution, the UN said yesterday.
“Europe is living through a maritime refugee crisis of historic proportions,” the UN refugee agency warned in a report, adding the number of people making the crossing swelled 83% in the first six months of 2015 compared with a year earlier.
The situation is expected to worsen as more clement summer weather allows ruthless people smugglers to dispatch more people on the dangerous crossing, often in rickety boats and at the mercy of human traffickers.
The immigration crisis is a burning issue for the EU, where member states have been wrangling over the best ways to tackle human trafficking and arguing over how to share the burden of helping new arrivals, many of them ill, starving and destitute.
The soaring numbers arriving in Italy and Greece, before moving on to other northern European states in the hope of finding jobs, has sparked outcry and growing anti-foreigner rhetoric in many countries.
The UN hailed Brussels’ decision to redistribute 40 000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum-seekers who have already arrived in Europe, but called for greater solidarity between countries to help both migrants and the states carrying the heaviest load.
UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres stressed most of those attempting the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean are not economic migrants.
“Most of the people arriving by sea in Europe are refugees, seeking protection from war and persecution,” he said in a statement.
A third of those who have arrived by sea in Italy or Greece this year came from war-ravaged Syria, while people fleeing Afghanistan and Eritrea each made up 12% of arrivals.
Other top countries of origin include conflict-wracked Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq and Sudan, the report said.
This year has also seen a sharp increase in the numbers of people dying as they try to cross the Mediterranean. So far 1 867 have been killed – 1 308 of them in April alone.
The unprecedented number of deaths spurred European leaders to broaden search and rescue operations.
The UN also noted a shift in migration patterns, with the number of people travelling the eastern route from Turkey to Greece now surpassing the route from north Africa to Italy. — AFP