March 22 marks World Water Day, a UN-sponsored event meant to bring attention to the sustainable management of one of our most important resources. As demands for drinking water increase, rapid urbanization, pollution, and climate change all threaten its availability. This photo gallery from across RFE/RL's broadcast region highlights the central role of water in people's lives, and the sometimes great lengths needed to secure it. (21 PHOTOS)
World Water Day Puts Focus On Precious Resource
1
A boy drinks water from a plastic container in Karachi, Pakistan.
2
A Tatar woman carries water in the Tyumen region of Russia.
3
Afghan children wait to fill cans from a community tap in Kabul.
4
A resident of Temirtau, Kazakhstan, draws water from a partially frozen well.
5
Afghan children drink water on the outskirts of Jalalabad.
6
A drained water source in Tikrit, Iraq
7
Residents pull a can of water on a sled in the Belarusian town of Talachyn.
8
A Kyrgyz child carries pails of water.
9
Romany refugees from Kosovo play in a water tap in Podgorica, Montenegro.
10
A man drinks from a stream near Bahawalpur in Pakistan's Cholistan Desert.
11
Armenian women carry water to the village of Bagaran.
12
Villagers in Okmazor, Tajikistan, use a donkey to help transport drinking water.
13
A child drinks from a tap at a camp for displaced people in Kabul.
14
A villager in Georgia collects water from a source provided by an OSCE development project.
15
Residents of the Kurenivka district of Kyiv line up for drinking water.
16
Kyrgyz children haul water in the village of Kara-Kabak.
17
An Afghan girl fills cans from a community tap in Kabul.
18
Women wait to fill their buckets in Uzbekistan.
19
Kazakhs collect water from the Ural River.
20
Iraqi children drink from an unsafe water source.
21
A child sells water on a beach in Karachi, Pakistan.