Sub-Saharan Africa

Students protest over water shortages.

Congress of South African Trade Unions, South African Municipal Workers Union and the South African Communist Party marched on the Nelspruit council to protest against plans to privatise water and sanitation services.

Kitwe’s Wusakile and Chamboli townships experience riots over erratic water supply. Residents engage police in skirmishes and eight people are arrested.

A protest over the price of water in Nyanya, Abuja, Nigeria results in violence, including the beating of water vendors.

Creation of boundaries in 1948 leaves Somali nomads under Ethiopian rule; border skirmishes occur over disputed territory in Ogaden desert where critical water and oil resources are located; cease-fire is negotiated only after several hundred are killed.

Botswana’s president Festus Mogae sends troops to the Kalahari Desert to destroy wells and empty water sources of indigenous Khoisan (also known as Bushmen), ostensibly in an effort to remove them from their ancestral lands and assimilate them into modern society. Critics blame the government of taking away water rights in favor of mining interests and labeled the government’s actions a “siege”; Botswana is condemned by international observers. Against expectations, a band of Bushmen retreat into the desert and survive…

A clash along the border between Dogon villagers from Mali and nomadic Fulani herders from Burkina Faso kills at least 30 people, after an earlier agreement to share water and pasture land was revoked. Chaos following a military coup in March is partly responsible for the breakdown in law and order in Mali.

Protesters in poor communities of Cape Town, South Africa riot over inadequate water and power. Hundreds burn tires, destroy cars, and throw rocks at police in anger over the lack of basic services.

On October 10, youths claiming to be members of the Group of Patriots for Peace (GPP) destroy facilities of the Ivoirian Water Distribution Company, the Ivoirian Electricity Company, and Côte d’Ivoire Telecommunications. Demonstrators say they were protesting the “free” supply of water, electricity, and telephone in rebel-controlled areas.

Conflict between the government of Laurent Gbagbo and opposing rebel forces leads to extensive violence and regional conflict. In late September 2002, there are reports of several mass graves discovered in the Bangolo. In Zeregbo and Bahably, four water wells are found with human remains. Early reports indicate that western rebel groups who captured the area killed the persons in the mass graves and wells between December 2002 and January 2003.