Residents of Corner Kamdini and travelers are grappling with the appalling sanitation situation in the township.
The busy Kamdini trading center which is strategically located at the Karuma-Gulu and Lira road junction in Oyam district is faced with an acute sanitation problem. More than five thousand residents of the area and the travelers who make a stopover for refreshments are forced to share two pit-latrines that have been constructed by the area local council.
So severe is the situation that residents queue in order to help themselves. The pit-latrines also double as bathrooms for both women and men.
Matters are however made worse because the pit-latrines have no attendants in place to keep them clean.
Locals there say it’s a daunting task as one is forced to sometimes wait for more than an hour especially during morning hours as people queue to bathe ahead of the day’s activities. Patrick Ayoo, a resident says the horrid smell from the pit-latrines is a big inconvenience to the residents and the travelers who stop by for refreshments.
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Moses Omara, who runs a retail shop in the area, says the situation is further compounded by failure of the local authorities to recruit people who clean the two toilets. He says some people who were volunteering to clean the toilets abandoned the work due to lack of facilitation.
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Pauline Achen, a restaurant operator in the area, says both men and women queue to use the same two pit-latrines.
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An effort to seek a comment from the area local officials was futile by the time of filing this report.
