Damietta residents suffer from Nile pollution

Yomna Kamel Middle East Times Staff
Muhammad, a 32-year-old father of three children, used to work for a furniture workshop in Damietta. Last year, he suffered kidney problems and was later diagnosed with kidney failure. Since then, he has been unable to work because of his deteriorating health condition.

Hospitalized twice a week, his children quit school to work in the furniture shops of Damietta, which are renowned for their craftsmanship.

Lately though, Damietta has taken on the more dubious distinction of being known for high rates of disease attributed to water pollution.

A victim of such contamination, Muhammad is one of tens of cases Damietta Specialized Hospital receives on a rotating basis.

"More than half of patients treated at the hospital's Internal Medicine Unit suffer liver and kidney diseases and infections. It is all because of the polluted water they drink," said Dr. Abdel Rahman Al Refaai, head of Internal Medicine Unit at Damietta Specialized Hospital.

Chronic active hepatitis, bilharzial hepatic fibrosis, malignant liver tumors, infectious hepatitis and chronic renal failure are common diseases and infections among Damietta's residents. Water pollution and bilharzia are the main causes of these illnesses, explains Refaai.

Research on liver diseases carried out ten years ago by Dr. Shella Sharlouk showed that around 25 percent of Egyptians suffer from liver ailments.

According to Sayed Higazy in his article in the semi-official Al Akhbar newspaper, this is mostly due to water pollution. This pollution is worse at the mouths of rivers like in the Damietta and Daqaliya governorates, where it accumulates from various dumping sites.

River pollution includes municipal waste water, industrial 'black spots', and household rubbish that find their way directly to the 120 kilometer area (the river's length from Daqaliya to the sea) where the Nile ends its journey and meets the Mediterranean. Damietta's population of over 914,614 depends on the heavily polluted stretch of river as its only source of water.

"Not less than 50 percent of these governorates' population have developed kidney and liver problems. I am calling upon all local and international NGOs to intervene and give a helping hand. Blood test campaigns should be launched to accurately know the percentage of liver and kidney infections," Higazy says.

Despite the apparent need for help with this problem, it seems NGOs' efforts are focused more on the capital and surrounding areas.

"Our activities are carried out in Cairo, Giza and Qalyoubiya. Due to financial shortages we still cannot extend our projects to other governorates like Damietta and Daqaliya. We hope one day we willbe able to cover the whole country and contribute in solving their problems," says Ahmed Samy, an employee at a Cairo-based NGO.

Using filters or drinking bottled mineral water may seem like good alternatives but they are not feasible in this situation.

"I don't drink water directly from the tap and I advise people either to drink mineral water or use a water purifier. Unfortunately, most people cannot afford to buy water filters and purifiers. They are villagers and laborers working for furniture workshops," Refaai adds.

He thinks that fish farms in the Nile are a major source of water pollution in Damietta. They form a good environment for insects and develop a putrid smell. Additionally, Damietta lacks a developed sewage system and sewage water is drained into the Nile.

Fishing, considered one of Damietta's staple industries, seems to be badly affected by Nile pollution. Nile fish prices have plummeted and fishermen in turn have suffered financial, as well as health setbacks.

"We stopped eating Nile fish like catfish and bolti. Although bolti, locally known as the shabar, is our popular dish, we cannot eat it anymore. A kind of worm lives in shabar's gills and cooking does not kill them," Omayma Ahmed, a housewife, says.

The shabar's price went down from 15 pounds to three pounds per kilo.

"Only visitors and poor people eat the shabar these days simply because they do not know it is polluted," she adds.

While Cairo and major cities are the target of NGOs' activities and projects due to limited financial resources, the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, which covers the entire country with its activities, is undertaking activities that may provide long-term relief.

The agency's efforts to decrease Nile pollution that include controlling industrial waste dumped into the river seem be showing some signs of success.

According to Amer Osama, New Industrial Cities Coordinator at the Unit of Environmental Surveillance, last year the agency stopped 34 industrial firms located along the Nile from dumping their industrial waste.

Such a procedure helped in decreasing pollution rates in the river and it comes within a framework of a series of measures to be taken by the agency directed towards solving the problem, according to Osama.