'Ask about our lives and you will not stop weeping'

Earth summit: At the deep end

Amena Khatun lives on a sandbank in the middle of the vast Jamuna river in north-west Bangladesh. Her community is among the most vulnerable in the world to dramatic seasonal change. The banks, called chars, are sandy and dusty during the dry season; but when the monsoon rains come, the river swells and erodes the sand. Whole chars are often completely flooded, forcing the inhabitants to abandon their homes.

Amena and her two children have moved 15 times because of the floods. The 30-year-old no longer has land of her own and relies on the charity of others. She cannot stay in her temporary home on Balur Char for long, because eventually the landowners will ask for rent or the floods will force her to move on again.

In the meantime life on Balur Char is hard. More than 100 families went to live there in 1998 after heavy floods washed away their homes elsewhere. They have only five tubewells from which to fetch clean water, so river water is used for bathing, drinking and cooking. There are no latrines. Skin diseases, stomach problems, diarrhoea and fevers afflict the community. "You ask about our lives," says Amena, whose husband died of a disease caused by drinking unclean water. "If you continue to listen you will not be able to control your weeping. With the monsoon this is no place to live."

Despite this, generations of people have stayed on the thousands of sandbanks they regard as a homeland. Even if they wanted to leave, space is such a valuable commodity in Bangladesh that most simply could not afford to buy anywhere on the mainland. They are cut off from all development opportunities. There are no telephones, no electricity or motorised transport, and the chars can be reached only by boat. People survive by growing rice and rearing chickens and goats.

The most secure sandbank is Erendabari Char, which has a central area that stays relatively free of flooding, although people still raise their beds off the ground during the monsoon season as a precaution. The floods can last for up to two months, during which time people eat rice, lentils and chillies they have stored in preparation. When the weather allows, a communal boat takes them to market on the mainland to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, if any are available.

Development work is extremely difficult because of the precarious nature of the landscape, but the British charity WaterAid has been working on Erendabari Char for two years, alongside two Asian organisations. So far water and sanitation have been brought to 1,000 people and another 2,000 should benefit in the next year. But there are 230,000 living on the chars.

In Johannesburg this week WaterAid will be calling for the world's politicians to make access to clean drinking water and effective sanitation a priority. The multimillion-pound summit may seem a world away from the daily struggle faced by the people of the chars, but decisions made in the conference hall will change their lives. If the international community sets global targets and makes the money and expertise available it will mean the Bangladeshi government, like many others, suddenly has the means to save its people from sickness and death. If not, Amena and billions of other men, women and children in the developing world will continue to be deprived of two of the basic requirements for human life: sanitation to stay free of disease, and clean water to drink.

www.wateraid.org.uk