GUIGLO, 19 March (IRIN) - It is no longer only the women and children who spend their days looking for water in the towns and villages of southwestern Côte d'Ivoire. Since wells started drying up last December men of all ages can also be seen walking out into the bush carrying buckets.

"We have not known a drought like this for a very long time," said Lucie Ziadé, a housewife in Pinhou, a large village between the towns of Duekoué and Guiglo in Côte Ivoire's southwest.

It hasn't rained since December in the region of Duekoué, about 400km west of the main city, Abidjan. The southwest is where much of the country's rice, yams and manioc are produced, as well as the leading cash crops: cocoa, coffee and rubber.

Rains should have begun falling in February, but instead the dry season has persisted. As a result, agricultural production is down and at least half of all local households are suffering from water shortages. Residents are forced to trek hours from where they live to rivers and wells to find water.

Problem compounded

The water shortage in the southwest is exacerbated by an infrastructure that has deteriorated since a brief civil war erupted in 2002, leading to the division of the country between a rebel-held north and a government-run south. Residents wonder whether a new peace accord signed last month will provide better results than previous agreements that have faltered. The new accord makes no reference to the country's various humanitarian crises.

The problems in the southwest are so grave that the state-run Water Distribution Company of Cote d'Ivoire (SODECI) has to alternate its supply of water between neighbourhoods within Duekoué and Guiglo and can only sporadically truck in water to outer villages.

"The boreholes we have are not enough," said a SODECI water technician in Guiglo who asked not to be named. "Every day almost 600 cubic metres of water are required for Guiglo and the surrounding area but we cannot extract more than 300 cubic meters so we cannot satisfy everyone."

He said the water problems would likely worsen in the coming months. "We will just have to wait for the rainy season to solve the problem but in the meantime I am extremely doubtful we can stop the taps and wells from completely drying up," he said.

No water in schools

The lack of water increases the risk of disease, particularly among children. In all but one of the 20 schools in Duekoué and the surrounding area, children have no access to drinkable water.

"They have to drink something in the course of the day and so they look for what water they can get," including from unsafe sources, said a teacher in Duekoué.

Children at school don't even have water to clean themselves, Pascal Niando, the assistant treasurer of one of the schools, told IRIN.

"After they go to the toilet they don't wash their hands and then return to class," Niando said. "We have moments when we are confronted by cases of diarrhoea and we're always worried that there will be an outbreak of cholera."

Farmers give up

Local farmers fear there will be food shortages this year. They point to the yellowing of trees and bushes in the area as evidence of a lean period ahead.

Drought has occurred every second year in the region since 2001, according to the United Nations. Cereal harvests dropped by 27 percent in 2003 from the previous year.

"The first rains should normally arrive here in February. This is what gives us hope," Lionel Kpaïdé a farmer in Guiglo told IRIN. "[This year] I haven't even bothered to go to my field of manioc for two months. I know I am not going to have anything to eat."

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