Tag Archives: DROUGHT

Adelaide, South Africa | AFP |  South African farmer Steve Bothma heaved a sigh of relief when the weatherman finally predicted rain. His excitement was short-lived. Just a few days later, the forecast changed. It was back to cloudless sunshine. In South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, no one can remember the …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | The United Nations on Thursday called for some $200 million in extra funding to help four million Zimbabweans unable to buy food due to drought and triple-digit inflation. The southern African country has been hit by a poor harvest and an entrenched economic crisis that has …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s wildlife agency said Monday it would move hundreds of elephants and other animals in a dramatic bid to save them from a lethal drought. At least 120 elephants have already died over the past two months as the country grapples with one of the worst droughts in its history. …

Why some Kenyans are going hungry months after a bumper maize crop | Timothy Njagi Njeru | Why are people going hungry in April after a bumper crop of staple maize was harvested last year? Distribution remains a persistent challenge when it comes to food access in Kenya. There has …

Amboasary, Madagascar | AFP | One after another, the mothers sat their babies in the shade, on a mat placed on the dusty ground. This morning at least, their children will have enough to eat. In the village of Ifotaka, at the southern tip of Madagascar, the noise and excitement …

Paris, France | AFP | South Africa is set for a steep decline in wine production in 2018 as the country grapples with a water crisis ravaging Cape Town and surrounding areas, a Paris-based global organisation said Tuesday. Africa’s top wine producer is set to produce 8.6 million hectolitres of wine …

  Paris, France | AFP | The world has abundant freshwater but it is unevenly distributed and under increasing pressure, UN agencies say, as highlighted by the severe shortages in Cape Town. – Water, water ‘everywhere’ – More than 97 percent of the planet’s water is salty, most of it in …

Dabafayed, Ethiopia | AFP | Down a sandy track past a desiccated animal carcass lies a cluster of half-built huts that Ethiopia’s government and aid agencies hope will blunt the worsening toll of repeated droughts. The soon-to-be village of Dabafayed is intended as a new, permanent home for once-nomadic herders made …

Crocodile Jaw Bridge, Kenya | AFP | Close by a narrow, rickety bridge in Kenya’s central Laikipia highlands two herders sit on blistering hot rock next to the muddy trickle of the Ewaso Nyiro river to explain why they routinely break the law, invading private land to graze their cattle. “The …

Warder, Ethiopia |Chris Stein, AFP | The Somali people of Ethiopia’s southeast have a name for the drought that has killed livestock, dried up wells and forced hundreds of thousands into camps: sima, which means “equalised”. It’s an appropriate name, they say, because this drought has left no person untouched, …