Somali Al Shabaab insurgents poison a well and damage water infrastructure near the port city of Kismayo, Somalia. Insurgents are fighting against Kenyan peacekeeping troops participating in the African Union mission in Somalia.
On October 10, youths claiming to be members of the Group of Patriots for Peace (GPP) destroy facilities of the Ivoirian Water Distribution Company, the Ivoirian Electricity Company, and Côte d’Ivoire Telecommunications. Demonstrators say they were protesting the “free” supply of water, electricity, and telephone in rebel-controlled areas.
Conflict between the government of Laurent Gbagbo and opposing rebel forces leads to extensive violence and regional conflict. In late September 2002, there are reports of several mass graves discovered in the Bangolo. In Zeregbo and Bahably, four water wells are found with human remains. Early reports indicate that western rebel groups who captured the area killed the persons in the mass graves and wells between December 2002 and January 2003.
Water infrastructure, including dams and the major Kunene-Cuvelai pipeline, is targeted during the conflicts in Namibia and Angola in the 1980s.
During the long-running conflict in the Congo, many water utility systems are attacked and destroyed. By 2006, the World Bank estimates that at least one-third of water utility installations have been looted and completely destroyed.
The water supply for the city of Kitshanga, Congo is cut off in clashes between DRC armed forces and the Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain (APCLS). The violence kills tens of civilians, including a humanitarian worker, wounds hundreds of people, and displaces thousands.
Declining rainfall has led to growing fights between animal herders and farmers with competing needs. In August, 2007 people are forced to flee their homes by fighting in Zounweogo province.
At least 76 water systems have been damaged by the ongoing conflict in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. The larger conflict leading to these casualties is between different ethnic groups and has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Protests and violence over water shortages occur in the capital of Mauritania, Nouakchott. By July 2012, over 70,000 Malian refuges were seeking asylum in Mauritania, putting pressure on scarce food and water supplies.
German colonial troops brutally suppress a rebellion by the Herero people of German South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia). General Lothar von Trotha pledges to exterminate the Herero people in what has become known as the Herero and Namaqua Genocide. The Germans drive ethnic Herero and Namaqua populations into the Namib desert leading to massive death from dehydration and starvation; they also reportedly poison desert water wells. Later, the UN estimates that up to 100,000 were killed, or 70% of the Herero…