Libreville cuts water supply to 15 liters per person daily

Libreville’s taps have run dry for months as Gabon’s capital grapples with a worsening water shortage that shows no sign of easing. The crisis has forced residents to queue for hours or buy expensive trucked water, while the government admitted last week it has no quick fix. Heavy rain that usually fills the Mbei and Ogooué basins has not materialised this year, leaving reservoirs at historic lows and the 800,000-strong population desperate for relief.

The emergency started building early in the dry season when rainfall across the Woleu-Ntem plateau fell 40 % below normal. At the same time, decades-old pipes and pumping stations—some still using colonial-era designs—are cracking under pressure, wasting an estimated 40 % of water before it reaches households. Demand, meanwhile, has surged as Libreville’s population has doubled since 2000, creating a perfect storm of shortage. The government declared a state of emergency on 10 June and airlifted military engineers to patch leaks and drill new boreholes, but the fixes are temporary.

Relief efforts collapsed this week when private distributors hijacked a government scheme that promised free water deliveries to the worst-hit districts. Drivers siphoned off tankers meant for neighbourhoods and sold the water back to residents at inflated prices. “We waited three nights in line only to watch our ration disappear to resellers,” said one resident in the PK5 district. Official figures show daily supply has dropped from 80 litres per person to barely 15 litres, forcing families to ration drinking, cooking and washing to a few litres a day.

Prime Minister Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze has promised stricter controls and a fresh pipeline tender, but engineers warn repairs could take until the next rainy season in October. Until then, Libreville’s residents face a brutal choice: pay ten times the normal price for water or go without. The crisis exposes deeper failures—climate change, crumbling infrastructure and weak regulation—that threaten to turn a seasonal scarcity into a permanent emergency for Gabon’s biggest city.