Every day at 3pm, when the bell rings in Kerio Boys and Nakurio Girls, students have no time to relax their minds after studying.
They instead fetch jerrycans and head to the river to quench their thirst, wash their clothes and bathe.
The students trek for more than five kilometres to fetch dirty water at Kerio River. The dirty water is alleged to have affected their health.
The learners said they risk their lives navigating dangerous places that are full of snakes, scorpion and other wild animals on their way to the river.
The two institutions are some of the schools in Turkana Central that are facing the challenge of water shortage as drought brings untold suffering in the region.
Kerio Boys principal Godson Were said the water crisis in schools has affected learning and the performance of students.
He decried the fact that students spend a lot of time looking for water instead of concentrating on studies.
“We are experiencing water scarcity and that’s why students are forced to access dirty water at Kerio River," Were said.
"The water is very saline and dirty. Students experience some health problems including coughs, colds and diarrhoea."
He said in a day, they take at least 10 students to the dispensary for treatment.
Were appealed to the government, humanitarian agencies and well-wishers to supply water to the schools to ease the challenges that students are going through.
Joseph Egelan, team leader for Red Vest Movement, criticised the Turkana government for not addressing the water menace in the region despite having a huge allocation of funds.
Egelan said the county has not prioritised the needs of residents in the region.
“Turkana gets a lion share of revenue after Nairobi. If the money could have been used in the right way the water shortage could have been a thing of the past," he said.
"But priorities of this government are wrong and that’s why the water shortage persists."
He called on the Ministry of Water to drill boreholes in schools to end the problem.
As part of drought mitigation in the county, the National Drought Management Authority is transporting water to schools and health centres.
NDMA assistant director Josephat Lotweli said they will supply water to schools faced with acute shortages for a period of two months.
“We saw it’s a war that needed our help. We have planned that each institution gets two trucks of water for the next two months,” he said.
Last month, Turkana Governor Josphat Nanok said the devastating drought is worsening and has reached 'alarming' proportions.
Nanok said no human deaths have been reported from the effects of drought. He was speaking at the county headquarters in Lodwar last month.
“Turkana has just entered into an alarm stage of drought. The effects are much felt along the Lake Zone area, Todonyang, Kangatotha, Kerio and the Kalapata are severely affected,” he said.
He said more than 640,000 people are in dire need of food.
NDMA said more livestock diseases were reported in pastoral zones such as Lokori, Letea, Lokichar and Kaeris wards.
