MEXICO CITY (AP) — Struggling to deal with a severe drought, water authorities in central Mexico decided Tuesday to stop taking water from a rapidly emptying reservoir that is home to an upscale lakeside community.
Residents around the Valle de Bravo reservoir had protested about Mexico City drawing water from the lake, an area dotted with expensive homes about two hours west of the capital. The reservoir is now about three-quarters empty, and that has hurt tourism and real estate prices.
Citlalli Peraza, the regional official for the National Water Commission, said authorities have decided to stop taking water from Valle de Bravo. She said they decided instead to supply Mexico City from the El Bosque reservoir, which is relatively unpopulated and a little farther from the capital. The El Bosque reservoir is just a little over half full.
But authorities simultaneously got complaints from Mexico City residents that they were getting dirty or contaminated water. Inhabitants of one upscale Mexico City neighborhood staged a protest Tuesday, blocking traffic on the city's main north-south avenue, complaining the water they were getting smelled of oil or gasoline.
City residents in other neighborhoods say that as the reservoir levels dropped, the water being delivered from them has become increasingly cloudy and bad-smelling.
Residents of Valle de Bravo complain their reservoir is being drained by Mexico City’s refusal to fix broken pipes that waste much of its water.
The water commission said that, so far this year, Mexico has received 29.6% less rain nationwide than in an average year.
Tanker trucks are increasingly seen delivering water in middle and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Mexico City; many poorer neighborhoods in the capital have never had reliable water service.
The water shortage has caused fires to break out in some strange places.
Over the weekend, one of Mexico City's two massive storm drains actually caught fire; officials said that waste gases had accumulated inside the underground conduit and ignited, causing flames to shoot out of ventilation shafts dozens of yards (meters) into the air.
Apparently, so little water has been moving through the drainage system that sewage has stagnated, allowing gases to accumulate.
In March, one of the capital’s rainwater catchment basins caught fire, scorching 75 acres (30 hectares) of dried up vegetation.
The El Cristo basin is one of a series of large holding ponds meant to hold excess water from storm drains. Because the city is located in a high mountain valley with no natural outlet, sudden rushes of rainwater tend to overwhelm the man-made drains; the catchment basins act as a buffer.
Normally, the basins are so green from previous rains that residents sometimes used them in the past as impromptu soccer fields or for grazing animals.
FILE - A dog stands on cracked, exposed banks of the Miguel Aleman dam in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, Thursday, March 14, 2024. Around this country of nearly 130 million, drought is draining reservoirs dry and creating severe water shortages. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Israel told the United Nations’ top court on Friday that a case brought by South Africa about its military operation in Gaza “makes a mockery of the heinous charge of genocide.”
The International Court of Justice is holding a third round of hearings on emergency measures requested by South Africa, which wants the court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, to order a cease-fire in the enclave.
The allegations were “completely divorced from the facts and circumstances,” Israel’s deputy attorney general Gilad Noam told a panel of 15 international judges.
South Africa told the court on Thursday that the situation in Gaza has reached “a new and horrific stage” and urged judges to order Israel to halt its military operations. Israel must “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip, said Vusimuzi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands.
Israel has strongly denied committing genocide in Gaza, saying it does all it can to spare civilians and is only targeting Hamas militants.
“We do not wish harm to these civilians as Hamas does,” Noam said, accusing the organization of using human shields.
South Africa has submitted four requests for the ICJ to investigate Israel. According to the latest request, the country says Israel's military incursion in Rafah threatens the “very survival of Palestinians in Gaza.”
In January, judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive.
The court has already found that there is a “real and imminent risk” to the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel’s military operations.
ICJ judges have broad powers to order a cease-fire and other measures, though the court doesn't have its own enforcement apparatus. A 2022 order by the court demanding that Russia halt its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has so far gone unheeded.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced since fighting began.
The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, Gaza’s Health Ministry says, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants in its count.
South Africa initiated proceedings in December 2023 and sees the legal campaign as rooted in issues central to its identity. Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands.” Apartheid ended in 1994.
Follow AP's coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Israel's agents Gilad Naom, left, Tamar Kaplan Tourgeman, center, and co-agent Avigail Frisch Ben Avraham, right, wait for the start of hearings at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, May 16, 2024. The U.N.'s top court opened two days of hearings in a case brought by South Africa to see whether Israel needs to take additional measures to alleviate the suffering in war-ravaged Gaza. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
The Peace Palace office of the International Court of Justice, or World Court, is pictured through a fence in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, May 16, 2024. The U.N.'s top court opened two days of hearings in a case brought by South Africa to see whether Israel needs to take additional measures to alleviate the suffering in war-ravaged Gaza. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
The Peace Palace, office of the International Court of Justice, or World Court, is pictured through a fence in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, May 16, 2024. The U.N.'s top court opened two days of hearings in a case brought by South Africa to see whether Israel needs to take additional measures to alleviate the suffering in war-ravaged Gaza. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Judges enter the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, May 16, 2024. The U.N.'s top court opened two days of hearings in a case brought by South Africa to see whether Israel needs to take additional measures to alleviate the suffering in war-ravaged Gaza. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Front row from left, South Africa's agents Cornelius Scholtz, Vusimuzi Madonsela and Israel's agents Gilad Naom, Tamar Kaplan Tourgeman and co-agent Avigail Frisch Ben Avraham wait for the start of hearings at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, May 16, 2024. The U.N.'s top court opened two days of hearings in a case brought by South Africa to see whether Israel needs to take additional measures to alleviate the suffering in war-ravaged Gaza. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
