Contaminated Water Supply In An Oil-Rich Nation
Over 1,600 of Angola's slum dwellers have died since a major cholera epidemic began in February 2006, and another 43,000 have been seriously sickened.
Cholera typically spreads through contact with contaminated water or sewage, and in Luanda's slums, both are everywhere. Neighborhoods here are ringed by mountains of garbage, often soaked by rivulets of human waste. Only about half of slum dwellers have even an outdoor latrine. While your kids are trying to learn how to turn a double-play, Angolan kids are running around in sewage-clogged creeks. For an extra treat, they slide down garbage dumps on sheet metal sleds into excrement-fouled puddles.
Much of Luanda (Angola's capital city, with a popluation of about 5 million) has no drainage system, so contaminated water is prone to flooding the shacks these folks live in.
Why is this? Angola is taking in oil money hand over fist from the 1.4 million barrels of crude pumped here each day. The economy grew by 18 percent last year. The government racked up a budget surplus of more than $2 billion.
Cholera is easily prevented and treated. The problem in Angola is that the huge oil profits are concentrated in the hands of a few elite. This group, as is often the case, has little interest in solving the problem. Perhaps they take their values from our oil executives.
