Protecting Water Services in Conflict Includes Protecting the Repair

UNICEF’s new Water Under Fire report raises a question beyond damaged pipes: can the people who restore a civilian service reach and operate it safely?

Event / source date: 2026-11-05 · Published 7 NOVEMBER 2026

The service is larger than the structure

A photograph of a broken pipe makes damage visible. It does not show every condition required to restore the service. A repair may need an engineer, a driver, replacement parts, safe access and a reliable source of power. If one essential element remains unavailable, the equipment can be technically repairable while the water remains inaccessible. Protecting a service therefore requires attention to the chain of people and permissions that keeps it operating.

UNICEF’s public statement dated 5 November in its body says reported attacks damaging or destroying water and sanitation systems tripled between 2021 and 2025. Its Water Under Fire Volume 4 covers 23 countries and territories from January 2021 to June 2026. These are the agency’s reported findings, not a real-time census of every incident. The analysis below examines service continuity; it does not independently establish responsibility for particular attacks.

Repair capacity is a form of civilian infrastructure

A maintenance team should not be treated as an optional addition to a protected installation. Without people able to assess faults, choose parts and test a repair, physical assets can lose their usefulness. A continuity plan should identify the capabilities the service requires and the conditions under which those people can work. This is an operational argument, not a substitute for legal analysis of any conflict.

Consider a hypothetical pumping station whose mechanical fault could be repaired in a few hours. If the only technician cannot reach the site, counting available pumps gives a misleading impression of readiness. The relevant question becomes whether the service has an accessible repair path. That includes transport, communication with the affected population and the ability to stop work when conditions become unsafe.

A replacement part is useful only inside a working chain

Buying spare parts can be prudent without resolving every constraint. The part must fit the installed system; someone must know how to install it; the necessary tools and power must be available. Stock held far from the service can also be inaccessible at the moment it is needed. The plan should connect inventories to actual equipment rather than describe them only through purchase value.

A practical register could distinguish an item that is physically present from one that is usable now. It could also record the dependencies that make the distinction important. Such a register would not guarantee continuity. It would make a failure easier to diagnose and prevent a reassuring aggregate figure from hiding a missing component.

Prioritisation should explain the service restored

When resources cannot repair everything at once, a list of damaged assets is not enough to establish priorities. A small component may reconnect a large service, while a visually dramatic structure may require a long intervention before anyone benefits. The decision should consider the people affected, alternative access and the time until an intervention can produce a usable result.

This does not mean reducing every decision to the largest number served. An isolated community with no alternative may have a stronger claim than a larger population with several functioning options. The reasoning should be explicit enough to examine, while avoiding disclosure of sensitive operational details. A public explanation and a detailed engineering plan have different audiences.

Temporary arrangements need an owner

A temporary supply can become a prolonged dependency when responsibility for replacing it remains unclear. The arrangement may be essential, but it still needs an identified operator, a replenishment process and a review of whether it meets the intended need. Calling something temporary should not remove the obligation to plan its ongoing operation.

The same applies to donated equipment. A gift can expand capacity while introducing a maintenance obligation the receiving service cannot meet. The useful question is not simply who owns the asset after handover. It is who can sustain its function, how faults will be reported and what happens when the original support ends.

Measure continuity without creating false precision

A restored installation is an important milestone. It should not automatically be described as uninterrupted access for every household it is intended to serve. Reports can distinguish repairs completed, operating hours, distribution capacity and the experience of people at the end of the network. Each measure answers a different question.

Information can remain incomplete in dangerous settings. The honest response is to explain the limits rather than combine uncertain numbers into a confident total. A smaller set of clearly defined indicators may be more useful than an elaborate dashboard that nobody can maintain. The objective is an account that supports the next decision.

The repair must not become an alibi

The ability to restore a service should never become an excuse to accept its repeated destruction. A resilient arrangement can reduce vulnerability while leaving the underlying protection problem unresolved. Recovery and prevention belong in the same discussion, but neither proves the other has succeeded.

UNICEF’s release is a timely reason to look beyond the visible asset. The decisive question is whether people can depend on the service and whether those who keep it running can perform their work. An infrastructure response that counts installations while overlooking repair capacity risks reporting progress at precisely the point where the service remains most fragile.

Gabriel Nicolaev — CyGuru

Sources & further reading

UNICEF: reported attacks damaging water systems in conflict ↗

Editorial photograph for illustration.

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