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Add to Preferred SourcesPeople eating locusts and cactus leaves, skyrocketing food prices, farmland sold for pennies just to buy some food or pay off debts, children begging on the streets, people dying of starvation. This is only a tiny part of the picture that can be seen in the southern region of Madagascar, the country, which according to the United Nations (UN), is on the verge of becoming the world’s first to experience famine triggered by no other cause but climate change.
Having seen no rain for the past four years, the region is facing the worst drought in 40 years. This has pushed tens of thousands of people towards a “catastrophic” hunger and high-level food insecurity, the UN said. Moreover, more than 500,000 children under the age of five will be at risk of malnutrition between May 2021 and April 2022, it noted.
Speaking of his visit to several populated areas in southern Madagascar, Issa Sanogo, the UN Resident Coordinator in the country, noted:
“In Amboasary and Ambovombe, two areas located in arid lands, almost three million people are suffering the consequences of two consecutive extreme droughts. In the town of Amboasary Atsimo, about 75 percent of the population is facing severe hunger and 14,000 people are on the brink of famine.” He further emphasized, “This is what the real consequences of climate change look like, and the people here have done nothing to deserve this.”
“My children and I have been eating insects every day now for eight months because we have nothing else to eat and no rain to allow us to harvest what we have sown,” Tamaria, a resident of the village of Fandovia in Amboasary district, told the BBC.
Climate scientists point out that the current droughts have been caused by climate change and indicate that Madagascar will be even more vulnerable to climate shocks in the future. The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report found that the country will see agricultural and ecological drought growing worse unless humanity eliminates the burning of fossil fuel.
Madagascar ranks 143rd among the 209 countries emitting carbon dioxide which means that it contributes very little to the ongoing climate change. It, therefore, pays a very high and painful price for the global warming that it has barely added to.
The ongoing food crisis has prompted the UN World Food Programme to seek US$78.6 million in emergency funding to support people in Madagascar suffering from famine.