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SBIKHA, Tunisia: Outside a small mosque in central Tunisia, women queue up at one of their village’s last water sources. It is a pipe that was originally intended to irrigate fields but has now become a lifeline in the parched region.
“We just need something to drink,” said Ribh Saket, 56, under the scorching summer sun as she placed a jerry can under a makeshift faucet connected to the water supply.
Like its neighbour Algeria and large parts of the Mediterranean, Tunisia is suffering from “alarm drought conditions”, according to the European Drought Observatory.
But while drought and rising temperatures are affecting the entire region, the impacts are doubly felt in rural areas, where poverty rates tend to be higher.
Tunisia’s national water network supplies almost all of the country’s urban areas, but only about half of the rural population.
The other half relies largely on wells built by local agricultural associations, which officially report to the Ministry of Agriculture.
“We were marginalized,” said Saket, whose village of about 250 families had such a well.
But in 2018, the plant was closed due to unpaid electricity bills – a common problem among agricultural associations – and villagers were left without pumps to pump water for their community in the Sbikha region, about 30 kilometers north of the city of Kairouan.
Since then, the families say, they have had to rely on water from wells originally dug by local farmers to irrigate their land.
None of these wells have government approval because they are often contaminated with pollutants due to improper construction and testing and are unsuitable for human consumption.

Ali Kammoun, 57, showed a scar running the length of his abdomen and said he had undergone two surgeries due to water-borne diseases.
“Half of us have kidney problems,” said his neighbor Leila Ben Arfa. “The water is polluted, but we have to drink it.”
The 52-year-old said she and other women “carry the canisters on their backs.”
Tunisia, which has been suffering from drought for the sixth year, is the 33rd most water-scarce country in the world, according to the World Resources Institute.
According to the World Bank, the Middle East and North Africa will fall below the “absolute water scarcity” threshold of 500 cubic meters per person per year by 2030.
In Tunisia, this amount is already below 450 cubic metres per inhabitant.
More than 650,000 Tunisians, mostly in rural areas, do not have running water at home, and nearly half of them live far from a public water source, according to a 2023 United Nations report.
For families in Tunisia’s poorest province, bottled water, which costs about half a Tunisian dinar (16 cents) per litre, remains a luxury.
“We need to find a solution,” said Djaouher Kammoun, a 26-year-old farmer who shares his well water with other villagers.
“Most families come to fetch water while we work, and sometimes we cannot do both,” he said, calling the system unsustainable.
According to the National Agricultural Observatory (ONAGRI), about 60 percent of wells across the country are dug privately and without permits.
But while this practice provides a temporary – albeit unhealthy – solution for some, it exacerbates water shortages.
A 2022 study by ONAGRI found that Tunisia’s deep aquifers have been depleted to 150 percent of their recharge rate, and its groundwater aquifers to 119 percent.

“Today we find ourselves in the same spiral, the same vicious circle, with the same problems,” says Minyara Mejbri, Kairouan coordinator at the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES).
The villagers protested, blocked roads and complained several times – all to no avail.
“The government said we already had access to drinking water,” said Saief Naffati, a 34-year-old who is leading his community’s efforts to resolve the crisis.
“They told us that if we protested, we should stand by it because the National Guard would arrest us.”
Many have left the village because they are at their wits’ end, Naffati added.
Among them is his brother Raouf, who now lives in the coastal town of Hammamet.
Saleh Hamadi, a 55-year-old farmer who is also struggling with the distribution of his well water, said “at least 150 families have left.”
“Most of our young people have moved away, leaving the older ones alone,” he said.
“Why is this still a problem in 2024? Why are we still thirsty?”