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A family in drought-hit Turkana County. [File, Standard]
Kobebe Dam, one of Karamoja's largest man-made reservoirs, has run dry, leaving thousands of pastoralists from Uganda and neighbouring Kenya scrambling to find water for their livestock.
But local leaders and herders insist drought is only part of the story. They point to poor maintenance, damaged control valves and vandalism as forces that turned a hard dry season into a full-blown crisis.
Located in Rupa Sub-county, Moroto District, Kobebe has served pastoral communities across Karamoja and Turkana County since it was commissioned in 2010 by Uganda's Ministry of Water and Environment. Built for 6.7 billion Ugandan shillings, the reservoir had a capacity for about 2.3 billion litres of water.
