Villagers of Oikokola and Amaupa in the Omusati Region marched to the office of Governor Erginus Endjala to hand over their petition demanding clean drinking water.

In their petition, the demonstrators say that at Independence, Namibia adopted Vision 2030, promising to improve and increase safe drinking water and sanitation in both rural and urban areas.

This is still not the case at Oikokola and Amaupa villages, they argue.

The demonstrators say they feel deprived of enjoying the privilege of potable water and have depended on dirty, salty water from the wells for the past 33 years.

Reading their petition, Group Spokesperson Petrus Shiweva says Amaupa villagers have been without clean water in the area for 33 years now.

At one point, water was ferried to them by truck, but this ended in 2022.

Water ferried by truck could take between two and three months to arrive at the village.

People who are on ARV treatment are also not happy to take their medication with dirty water.

The community wants the Ministry of Agriculture, Water, and Land Reform to rescue them.

"In addition, we, the residents of Oikokola and Omakuku, suffer from the water crisis in our areas, although there are pipes that take clean water to the area that has only been operational since 2017. Since 2017 to date, we have had no water in our villages. We used to get water from the directorate of rural water supply through the councillor's office."

Lack of clean drinking water has forced some villages to travel more than 50 kilometres to Okahao and Tsandi.

"We have very painful cases where three people died in a well last year. Are you perhaps waiting, as a government, for more people to die in these wells before you can respond? We have tried to call the number of the constituency councillor on several occasions, but our calls have fallen on deaf ears."

Omusati Governor Erginus Endjala assured the demonstrators that their water problem would be addressed as soon as possible.

"The issue of water when it comes to the western part of our region will be addressed because at the moment the Ministry of Agriculture and Water already has a project called Ruacana South-Pipeline that intends to cover the area of Tsandi, the area of Ruacan constituency, and that pipeline can link up to Opuwo. The design is already done; the only thing that is left is the appointment of the contractor who is going to start with work."