Several Rural Towns with Damaged Handpumps in Lofa Fear Tougher Dry Season                                                                                                                        

By J. Mason Kollie

Lofa County-November 1, 2025-Residents of several rural towns in Lofa County are anticipating tougher dry season amid damaged handpumps in the villages and towns with just a month left to enter the dry season.

The affected communities include towns in Wulukoha Clan, Lower Walker Clan, Upper Walker Clan, Bondi Clan, Tahamba Clan, amongst others.

In separate interviews with Rural Reporters News Network (RRNN), on November 1, 2025, residents of villages and Towns in Voinjama and Kolahun Districts lamented that most of their hand pumps are no longer working, leaving them to drink from creek, River and stream waters.

“Most of the damaged hand pumps you see in these towns and villages were built by NGOs after the war, but since the NGO left, we are not able to maintain these hand pumps in our communities because the spare parts are very expressive” Kulako Dorbor of Fassavolu Town said in an interview.

He lamented that the least amount of money to repair or get spare parts for some of the hand pumps is US$500.

Kulako Dorbor said community members sometimes contribute to repair the handpumps but finding a good technician remains a major challenge, leaving with no option but to fetch water from nearby creeks for domestic use.

“We don’t have the technical people to repair our hand pumps in the villages and Towns, and we don’t have enough money again to pay the technical people. Only NGOs were helping us, but since they left, we are drinking unsafe water”, Dorbor added.

Residents of Sammy’s Town and Toboguasu Town in district #3 Lofa County complained that during the mid-dry season, they usually drink from swamp water at which time their handpumps run out of water completely.

Siah Morris and Finda Fayia explain: “Our town in this area is located on top of the hill, so during the dry season, all our hand pumps can be dried, so we have to dig the swamp water from far distance before we even drink. We can walk about 30 to 45 minutes before we even get the Swamp water, so we are calling on the Government of Liberia to help us because sometimes our children can even get sick in our hands because of the bad water that we can drink”.