The villages of Sharukwe and Sikali in Kavango West's Ncuncuni Constituency face a water crisis.

This comes after thieves vandalized and stole solar borehole pumps from their water points last month.

The Kavango West Region is among the worst affected by the spike in borehole pump thefts experienced since August this year.

The water points of neighboring villages were vandalized within a week, leaving these communities without clean drinking water.

Sikali Village Headwoman Veronica Ausiku is urging the government to replace the equipment, as she says the villagers are too poor to afford it.

"To whom do we cry if not to the government because the government is our mother? The government needs to look into this situation and see how to help this village because, with the rainy season, the wells get flooded and all the dirty things are washed into the water. In the morning, we fetch and drink contaminated water."
  
Ausiku says the villagers are back to fetching water from polluted wells that are unfit for human consumption.

"The problem we are facing now that they have stolen our equipment is that we are not living well, and now we are back to the things that we had, like drinking water from wells, which will cause problems for our people like diarrhea and other illnesses, and our people will die," added Sharukwe Village Development Committee Chairperson Mathew Ngunda.

Ngunda says measures should be put in place to ensure that no one vandalizes the borehole once it has been rehabilitated.

"What we want from our leaders is that they should analyze and see how we can make it difficult for the thieves. They need to assess how we can protect our infrastructure. You can see our borehole is in the open. If they could have built a structure that could be locked, then the borehole could be safe. You can see these thieves, after stealing the pump, coming back to steal the cable. Now they might come back for our solar panels."

So far  20 solar pumps have been stolen since August this year, and replacing one solar pump could cost the government more than N$50,000.