Water Under Fire
Attacks on critical infrastructure are supposed to be off limits during armed conflict. That’s not stopping warring parties from harming water systems.
The cost of conflict is often felt first through water, and worst for children. Around the world, attacks harming water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems are expanding in type, frequency and location as parties to conflict flout the most basic rule of war: Protect civilians.
When water services are destroyed or disrupted, infectious disease and malnutrition surge. Hospitals and health clinics come to a halt. Schools shutter. And children forced to collect water far from home become increasingly vulnerable to gender-based violence, abduction and recruitment.
The United Nations Security Council has condemned attacks on water, sanitation and healthcare – and attacks on healthcare are globally monitored in a coordinated effort to allay the suffering they cause.
But no such reporting mechanism exists for the vital resource needed to keep hospitals, and every essential service, running: water.
Without data to show where and how water is coming under fire, efforts to advance advocacy will continue to fall short of what’s needed to protect children. The latest volume of Water Under Fire examines documented attacks across 23 countries and territories over a five-year period, highlighting the devastating impact on children and the inventive ways humanitarian workers are responding.
Where have essential water services been affected by conflict?
Attacks harming water and sanitation are on the rise. Between 2021 and 2025, reported attacks that damaged or destroyed WASH systems tripled. The true scale is likely larger, as no global, coordinated system exists to track incidents. Water Under Fire: Volume 4 examines documented attacks across 23 countries and territories between January 2021 and June 2026.
How are children harmed when water comes under attack?
Around the world, children have been killed and injured by airstrikes and armed drones while queuing for water – and by landmines and remnants of war while fetching it from afar.
Attacks are also destroying water systems, contaminating wells, killing water workers and cutting off access to the equipment needed to repair infrastructure.
The impact reverberates across everything a child needs to survive.
Disruptions to water and sanitation services allow diseases like cholera, hepatitis and acute watery diarrhoea to spread. These infections can lead to a loss of appetite and malabsorption of nutrients. For children who become severely malnourished, treatments are hard to come by, since therapeutic milks rely on clean water to be reconstituted.
What's more, when water becomes scarce, children – especially girls – often need to collect it farther from home. The risk of encountering members of armed groups along the way makes children vulnerable to abduction, recruitment and gender-based violence.
Time spent collecting water is also time away from the classroom. In many cases, water scarcity and disease outbreak shut down schools altogether. Out-of-school children face heightened risks of exploitation, child labour, child marriage and trafficking.
Sudan, February 2025: The enduring impact of a single strike
What type of attacks occur?
| Damage, destruction or disruption of water and sanitation services | Kinetic or cyber actions that damage, destroy or disrupt water and sanitation systems and services. |
| Contamination of water sources | The introduction or release of physical, chemical, biological or toxic contaminants into water sources, or pollution resulting from damage or destruction to infrastructure, rendering water unsafe or unsuitable for human use. |
| Damage, destruction or disruption of energy systems and services | Kinetic or cyber actions that damage, destroy or disrupt the energy supply on which water and sanitation facilities depend. |
| Harm to WASH and energy personnel | Violence and interference affecting WASH and energy personnel. |
| Protection violations affecting children and communities related to WASH | Violence, abuse, coercion and deprivation, including gender-based and sexual violence, and the denial of access to WASH facilities. |
| Explosive ordnance contamination | Access restrictions, harm to civilians or damage to water and sanitation infrastructure caused by contamination from explosive ordnance. |
| Denial of humanitarian access and restrictions on essential supplies, equipment and energy | Access impediments or deprivation imposed on humanitarian actors, hindering their ability to safely access and assist children and communities with WASH, and restrictions on their ability to access essential supplies, equipment and energy. |
What's being done in response?
Strengthening local capacity to sustain service delivery
Parties to conflict restrict access to water and sanitation by delaying repairs, limiting movement and disrupting supplies. In response, UNICEF helps communities and local authorities maintain service delivery by providing technical and coordination support, while continuing to negotiate safe, unimpeded humanitarian access with parties to conflict.
Adopting decentralized approaches to rehabilitation
Large, centralized systems are vulnerable to a single point of failure. UNICEF rebuilds WASH systems using decentralized approaches that strengthen resilience, including by moving away from reliance on national energy systems, and towards locally managed solar power.
Investing in conflict-resilient infrastructure
Water and sanitation systems must be designed to keep functioning when conflict damages infrastructure, disrupts energy and supply chains, or prevents humanitarians from reaching communities. UNICEF invests in small-scale solutions that fortify water infrastructure to withstand attack. We also pre-position essential supplies and strengthen local supply chains to reduce reliance on external assistance.
What is UNICEF calling for?
What is UNICEF calling for?
- Parties to conflict must comply with international humanitarian law and protect WASH systems essential to children’s survival from attack, damage and disruption. They should maintain essential services, embed these obligations in military doctrine and procedures, and uphold distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack. Water infrastructure and services must not be used as a method of warfare or to deprive civilians – including children – of water essential for survival.
- Member States, including members of the UN Security Council, should pursue additional political measures to strengthen existing legal protections and secure concrete commitments, including, where appropriate, further UN Security Council action or a political declaration to protect water infrastructure and essential WASH services in armed conflict.
- Member States, including members of the UN Security Council, and donors should establish and fund a standardized global system to monitor and report attacks on water and sanitation systems, services, workers and users. The mechanism would enable the identification and reporting of global patterns, deepen understanding of reverberating impacts, and inform policies, advocacy, engagement with parties to conflict and operational responses that better protect children and the essential services on which they depend.
- Parties to conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians, including WASH personnel, from the effects of hostilities.
- Member States, donors and humanitarian actors should monitor risks of sexual violence, exploitation and coercion, and integrate gender-based violence prevention and child protection measures into WASH responses in conflict settings.
- Parties to conflict must allow and facilitate rapid, safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian actors and WASH, utility and energy personnel, including access to the equipment and essential supplies required to assess, operate, maintain, repair and restore water and sanitation infrastructure and services. Delays in access to spare parts, fuel, treatment chemicals and technical personnel can cause continuing deterioration of essential services long after damage occurs.
- Member State donors, national authorities and private sector partners should fund conflict-resilient water and sanitation systems that can maintain essential services during crises, while strengthening national and local capacity, evidence generation, early warning and impact evaluation. Funding cuts are occurring at precisely the moment when needs are increasing. Sustained investment in conflict-resilient WASH systems is essential to preserve life-saving services for children during and after conflict.