Drought Ravaging East Africa Bankrupts Farmers, Empties Schools
At least 16 million people are food insecure in the Horn of Africa.
Community leader Mohammed Dawud inspects the remains of his camel that he lost to a drought in the village of Nunow, Kenya.
Photographer: Simon Marks/BloombergBloated livestock carcasses and sun-bleached bones litter the parched landscape around Garissa in eastern Kenya, the epicenter of a humanitarian and environmental crisis that’s unfolding across the Horn of Africa.
The worst drought in at least four decades and sweltering temperatures have depleted the area’s rivers and dams, driven thousands of destitute farmers from their lands and left those that remain reliant on pumps, boreholes and trucked-in water supplies. School attendance has plummeted and children as young as six are sent to get water, rolling yellow plastic drums for miles to collection points.