Mombasa Old Town is facing a major sanitation crisis, which has resulted in the discharge of raw sewage into narrow alleys and public areas for several weeks. This has led to the closure of some businesses, and the health concerns of the local residents, who complain that they are paying for services that they do not receive, have become urgent.
The situation has evolved into a community emergency, giving rise to the already bitter feelings against a Sh500 monthly waste collection fee imposed by local authorities notwithstanding the deteriorating conditions.
The inhabitants paint a picture of calamity and catastrophes, as they have to deal with untreated sewage that is mixed with standing waste and is everywhere the children, the elderly, and the sick have to walk. The stench and dirt have gotten into the residential areas, so much so that the traders on Yusuf Haji Avenue have to close their operations and wait for the disease to come, which is a process that they would rather not go through.
“This is no longer an inconvenience; it is a threat to our lives,” declared Mikdad Ahmed, Old Town residents’ chairman. He lamented that the historic neighborhood, with its UNESCO heritage sites and important public institutions, including the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital, is deteriorating right in the eyes of the citizens and the tourists.
Residents say their urgent appeals via MOWASSCO and county officials have been ignored, leaving the raw sewage to intrude into houses, markets, and places close to schools. Community leaders have claimed that paying the mandatory Sh500 waste fee has become unreasonable with the collapse of infrastructure and the failure of waste removal services.
“¡Nos están cobrando impuestos por un servicio que no estamos recibiendo!”, dijo la activista Salma Hemed, quien criticó a los líderes locales por no haber abordado la crisis y por no haber hecho cumplir los derechos constitucionales de acceder a un medio ambiente limpio y seguro. The traders are saying that there is a possibility of cholera, dysentery, and other waterborne diseases if sewage continues to flow in the Old Town neighborhood.
The government’s waste management policy for coastal towns has been under a magnifying glass as the governmental authorities try to find the right point between controlling illegal sewer connections and modernizing the infrastructure. The specialists have pointed out that the Old Town crisis is nothing but the city’s sewer systems’ long-term decay, which has been reported as outdated and failing by the auditors in the past.
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