On the Brink of Disaster — A Deadly Drought in Southern Africa

Starved animal as a result of the drought in Southern Africa (Cr: Africa News)

By: Julian Mok

Lexington — The region of southern Africa continues to reel from the extreme and unprecedented combination of severe drought, calamitous cyclones and rising food prices. 41 million people living in southern Africa are projected to face food insecurity in the coming months as the region continues to hurtle towards a hunger disaster.

11 million people in southern Africa are already suffering emergency food shortages, with 7.3 million children considered acutely malnourished.  

Economies in Southern Africa are heavily reliant on agriculture, so climate change, and particularly such severe weather events, have immediate and long-lasting consequences. Mozambique is among one of the hardest hit in the region with the country losing lives and assets from Cyclone Kenneth and Cyclone Idai that hammered the country within a span of a few weeks in early 2019.

Kenneth was the strongest cyclone to ever hit the African continent with wind gusts up to 220 kilometers per hour and flattening farms in northern Mozambique. Farmers like Oscar Eugenio who lost their land and cash crops to the cyclones have been forced to do part-time labor on nearby farms in exchange for some maize and beans to feed his family.

Devastating cyclones combined with severe droughts have pushed some countries like Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe to declare state of emergencies.

In Zimbabwe, the government has taken extreme measures to conserve water, mandating specific periods to flush toilets and cutting water for as many as 100 hours a week in Harare, the capital. While the food supply is still healthy, it is becoming increasingly unaffordable to feed a family as the inflation rate is 300%. The price of maize, a staple crop, doubled in November and continues to increase. 

The Zambezi River in Zambia is indicative of the severity of the situation. The river volume is at its lowest level in half a century, which has led to crop failures and exacerbated food shortages.  Families are surviving by harvesting and eating wild plants and plant roots.

Power outages are becoming increasingly common as hydroelectric dams are becoming too dry to supply sufficient power. In turn, communities turn to coal and wood for power, furthering deforestation and causing hotter, drier summers.  

Southern Africa has been tipped as a “hotspot,” a region that faces increased risks of heat extremes and less rainfall as our planet continues to get hotter. The ongoing drought, with some pockets of communities having suffered six years of drought, has dire consequences for everyone.

In Namibia, 30,000 cattle have reportedly died from drought-related causes since April of last year– 200 elephants starved in national parks along the Zambezi River.

In a statement by Michael Charles, head of the International Red Cross Federation in Southern Africa, “We are seeing people going two to three days without food, entire herds of livestock wiped out by drought and small-scale farmers with no means to earn money to tide them over a lean season.”

The combination of weak infrastructure and extreme climate has left millions in the southern African region on the brink of a hunger disaster.  As the region’s temperature continues to increase at twice the average global rate, citizens are doing what they can to survive.