Tripoli, April 10, 2020 - More than two million people, including 600,000 children, who live in Tripoli and surrounding towns and cities, are suffering from water cuts for almost a week now. The water supply, part of the Great Man-Made River, was disrupted by a group in the Shwerif area as a pressure tactic to secure the release of family members. All mediation efforts until now do not seem to have produced a resolution to the dispute while millions of Libyans remain deprived of water. 

Water should never be used as a pressure card nor as a weapon of war. It is particularly reprehensible to deliberately cut off water supplies from people anywhere in Libya. 

This deplorable water cut is coinciding with a serious power outage in the western region, also imposed as a result of another individual dispute.