At this time Marocco has a great lack of water. Precipitations are irregular on account of the global warming. Besides this, 85% of the available ressources are used for agricultural exportation.In addition, there is a huge gap betwenn the cities and the left over rural environnement.
Since a few years, many private firms are trying to put their hands on the water ressources, involving in many cases the increase of the water prices. Today more and more people are protesting against it.
Counting 3500 inhabitants, Ben S’mim village localized at 200km from Rabat has been an interesting target for the " Euro-Africaine des eaux ", a global water company, in 1999 : The village’s source, wich permits -for free- to irriguate the fields and to water the livestocks could be used by the firm to produce every year 100 million litres of water…in bottles that you have to pay. The government accepted, and the workings started in 2005.
In 2006, the population protests against the project but the firm, with the police’s help manages to start the work : people are arrested. The village is encircled during 2 months with the interdiction to go in or out of the village.The electricity is cutted every night during the Ramadan to prevent people from gathering. The outcome : several miscarriage because of the imposibility to go to an hospital, and many people injured.
Today, the case of Ben S’mim, is defended by many NGOs and associations, and it looks like things are slowly changing : the project wich has now a mediatic importance, might stop in a few months.
Nevertheless, Ben S’mim is an example among many other villages, villages wich are silently sinking into impoverishement on account of the privatisation.
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