Four years after the last tap ran dry, a number of Eastern Cape villages that fall under the Mnquma Local Municipality and get their water from the Amathole District Municipality have turned to the courts for help after their attempts to access water were met with a ‘wall of silence’, reports the Daily Maverick.

With the help of the Masifundise Development Trust, villagers, including a group of community leaders who were arrested during the hard lockdown in April last year for having an emergency meeting about water, see the courts as a last hope.

‘There is currently no prospect that we will ever receive water,’ community leader Lulamile Daveyton Khetshemiya said.

Lawyers will argue that the current state of affairs infringes on residents’ right of access to water, dignity and the right to a healthy environment.

The villagers are taking on the municipalities, the Department of Water & Sanitation and Rand Water, the designated body for the roll-out of water tanks under disaster management regulations.

Khetshemiya said in court papers that the attempt to obtain a court order for emergency water within 15 days – and judicial supervision over the implementation of a sustainable water solution for the area – comes after years of repeated but failed attempts to get assistance.

Full Daily Maverick report