A man is stabbed by his neighbor over a water sharing dispute in Chennai, India. Current drought and water supply management problems have led to lack of water for millions living in the city.
Police are sent to the northwestern part of Kenya to control a major violent dispute between Kikuyu and Maasai groups over water. More than 20 people are killed in fighting in January. By July, the death toll exceeds 90, principally in the rural center of Turbi. The tensions arise over grazing and water. Maasai herdsmen accuse a local Kikuyu politician of diverting a river to irrigate his farm, depriving downstream livestock. Fighting displaces more than 2000 villagers and reflects tensions…
The Arab-Fur War (1987-1989) between the Arab and Fur ethnic groups in Libya, is triggered in part by severe drought that strains farmer-herder relationships. Libyan leader Gaddafi sends drought relief supplies and weaponry to opposing sides.
A group of Moroccan villagers, including many women and children try to stop the water supply to a local silver mine. They shut down some of the main wells that supply water for mining citing concerns about water allocation and pollution. The facility in Imiter, a Berber village nestled in the High Atlas mountains, has been accused of drawing more than its fair share of water and polluting what it uses.
Three men in the state of Georgia are arrested for planning to attack water treatment plants, power grids, and other infrastructure in an effort to incite anti-government militias in the United States to fight the federal government. A criminal complaint charges them with conspiring to receive and possess firearms, specifically pipe bombs and thermite grenades. Thermite grenades are military-grade weapons typically used to destroy vehicles, weapons systems, and other equipment.
Israelis from nearby settlements attack Qasra, a West Bank village of 6,000, destroying crops and a water well. Attackers previously burned down a mosque and damaged hundreds of olive trees.
The water supply for the Syrian city of Aleppo is cut off in both regime and opposition-controlled areas. The city’s water pumping stations are bombed, reportedly by the government, as are water distribution networks in opposition-controlled areas. In return, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs blames opposition forces for the water crisis.
The Serbian siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, includes a cutoff of all electrical power and the water feeding the city from the surrounding mountains. The lack of power cuts the two main pumping stations inside the city despite pledges from Serbian nationalist leaders to United Nations officials that they would not use their control of Sarajevo’s utilities as a weapon. Bosnian Serbs take control of water valves regulating flow from wells that provide more than 80 percent of water…
Tarata, Bolivia experiences violent confrontations between irrigators from the region of Arbieto and residents of the nearby town of Tarata. The dispute centers on the allocation of water among these users and new water infrastructure that took water from the Laka Laka dam. In October, irrigators destroy approximately two kilometers of water supply pipeline. In response, residents destroy part of a primary irrigation channel. After failed negotiations, the water system is damaged again in December in another confrontation between irrigators…
Caesar constructs water-filled ditches as blockade during Siege of Alesia in Gaul, site of modern-day Alise-Sainte-Reine in Côte-d’Or near Dijon, France.