Maat appeals to the parliamentarians to hold the negligent accountable to the people of the village of Al-Tun

Maat appeals to the Council of Ministers to set a water policy in line with international covenants

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The Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights is following up on the implementation of the Egyptian government's commitments in the universal periodic review, and within the framework of this follow-up, the Foundation monitored the complaint of a large number of residents of the village of Al-Toun, which is affiliated with Azab in Sunway in Al-Mahmoudiya Center in Al-Buhaira, about the water cut off five years ago as a result of their village being located on the borders of Damanhour and Mahmoudiya centers. By the end of the water lines, forcing them to buy their needs of water from neighboring villages, causing financial and health exhaustion.

The Maat Foundation followed up the problem after dozens of residents of Al-Toun village demonstrated in front of the governorate building in Damanhour city, protesting that drinking water had not arrived in the village for 5 years, and they refused to leave, demanding that they provide clean water, and the people sat on the street and refused to leave before providing them with clean water.

Where the water company sent a water cart to meet their needs and deliver water to the company's cars, which did not convince the people to demand that they provide sustainable water lines for them, as the people see that what the company does is not a solution but rather a house that the company does whenever the people gather to demand their rights to clean drinking water. And sustainable.

Some residents indicated that a large number of the villagers had suffered kidney failure as a result of drinking polluted water in the canal in recent years, and that they needed treatment.

While one of the residents stated that the water has been cut off from the village and neighboring villages for months, as the director of the Mahmoudiya Water Company insisted that the village is on the borders of the center and that its water needs must be met through Damanhour, which the water official denied in the latter.

Access to clean drinking water is a right for every human being that cannot be dispensed with in any way like all other basic rights such as the right to health, housing, equality and the enjoyment of all natural resources. It is also a right guaranteed by the Egyptian constitution, international documents and articles of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Despite this, some citizens are forced To drink contaminated water, provided that the choice is between dying during the conflict with others to win a gallon of clean water or due to kidney failure, hepatitis or cancer, and despite the relative achievements of the Egyptian government represented in increasing the percentage of extending drinking water networks in the period between 1990 and 2010, these achievements did not provide successful and final solutions to the crisis of drinking water shortage in Egypt and the deprivation of entire areas of it, and its lack of it in entire villages and centers.

In light of this, and in accordance with Egypt's international pledges, which it undertook before the Human Rights Council in Geneva during Egypt's submission to the Universal Periodic Review in 2014, in which Egypt accepted 223 recommendations, including the following recommendations:

1. Recommendation from the Maldives which stipulates “Take practical measures to ensure access to safe drinking water and sanitation services for all, especially for people in rural areas”,
2. The recommendation submitted by Iran, which stipulated “to intensify its efforts to realize economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health”.

These are the two recommendations that were fully accepted by the Egyptian government.

Whereas the Egyptian Constitution stipulates in Article 79 that “every citizen has the right to adequate and healthy food and clean water, and the state is obligated to secure food resources for all citizens…. “

From the above, Maat Foundation appeals to the members of Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, the Governor of Al-Buhaira and the President of the Holding Company in Al-Buhaira to do the following:

• The representatives of the House of Representatives formed a fact-finding committee on the aforementioned incident to find out the real reasons for the lack of clean drinking water reaching this village and hold the negligent accountable.
• The Prime Minister activated an urgent plan with the concerned ministers, the governor of the lake, and the head of the company to quickly finish extending clean drinking water lines to the village.
• The cabinet set out a rapid plan for the Egyptian water policy in line with what was approved by international conventions on the right to water in terms of availability of water in sufficient and good quantities, infrastructure for water services and its ability to reach citizens.