Famagusta suffers water shortage

Famagusta is currently suffering a water shortage due to a malfunction in the pipe which connects the town with the Panagra reservoir, the town’s Turkish Cypriot mayor Suleyman Ulucay said on Saturday.

He said the north’s water board had informed him that water is now being transported to his town from Panagra once more, but that due to differences in water pressure, areas on higher ground are still without a consistent supply.

He added that experts had told him that it may take until Monday for the problem to be fixed in its entirety.

The Panagra reservoir is connected by a pipe to Turkey, which has been sending water via the pipe to the north since 2020.

Ulucay then turned his attention to other means of sourcing water, saying, “the most basic duty of any municipality is to provide an uninterrupted water supply to the public.”

He explained, “for this reason, in 2010, a seawater desalination plant was built by the Famagusta Municipality, which would have been due to be transferred to public ownership by 2025 under the build-operate-transfer model.”

“Later, unfortunately, this facility was left without electricity and became completely dysfunctional as a result of the municipality’s failure to fulfil his obligations,” he said, referring to actions taken by his predecessor before he was elected in 2022.

“Our duty is to prevent our people from falling foul of this. We will take initiatives to put forward alternative sources of water, including the seawater desalination plant, to ensure uninterrupted water supply going forward,” he said.