Drought In Africa: Ethiopia's Bitter Harvest

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Drought in Africa: Ethiopia's Bitter Harvest

By the time the October rains arrived last week, five of the 13 heads of families in the village of Magado had hanged themselves, tormented by the loss of their cattle and livelihoods. Cahal Milmo reports from southern Ethiopia on what has become an international failure.

Published: 24 October 2006

The skeletal acacia trees that surround Magado village are testimony in more ways than one to the drought that has destroyed the lives of its inhabitants. The bare branches and parched earth are evidence of the six months of rainless heat that has wiped out up to 70 per cent of the livestock owned by the 11 million nomadic pastoralists spread across the Horn of Africa in the worst drought for a decade. But in Magado, a tiny isolated community of herdsmen deep in the arid bush of southern Ethiopia, the acacia trees have helped extract a terrible price for the drought and the failure of the outside world to react quickly to their plight. Humanitarian aid to Africa has grown almost six-fold in the past eight years from $946m (£556m) to $5.6bn (£3.3bn). Magado's share of this windfall came too late.

One day, three months ago, Worish Catalo, a 60-year-old herdsman from the village, walked out to one of the acacia trees under which he had regularly watched his herd of 80 cows from dawn to dusk. He slung a rope over the tree's thorny branches and hanged himself among what were by then the wasted corpses of his starved cattle. Mr Catalo, who had six children, was only the first. By the time the October rains arrived last week, the inhabitants of Magado had cut down four more men who had walked to other acacia trees never to return. Five of the 13 heads of family have killed themselves because of the shame and despair of watching their cattle, raised from birth and cherished like offspring, dwindle and perish before their eyes. Of the 2,000 cattle owned by the families of Magado before the drought struck at the beginning of 2006, just two now remain, an attrition rate of 99 per cent.

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Ms Dima said: "The aid came too late for us. We were provided with lifestock feed. But there were no animals to give it to. They were already dead. Yes, we have survived. But because we have lost our source of income, we can no longer send our children to school. It has been a terrible time. We must make a living from small things, firewood, wild crops. We have lost people and animals. We are proud; we have no wish to live off others. But now we are a marginalised people. Perhaps it is better for the men who have gone."

Near by is Bonaya Afatu, a traditional rabies doctor who treats humans and animals for the disease transmitted from wild dogs roaming the scrubby landscape occupied by the Borena. He knew three of the men who committed suicide, all of them aged between 50 and 75. He said: "These men had seen other droughts; our land is prone to such things. But never before has it been so severe or have we suffered such a tragedy. Our traditions say that a man without cattle is nothing. To be a man of that age and lose all your cows means you cannot recover. These men took their lives because the shame was too great."

end of excerpt.

There are no words. Sometimes when I write about this issue or read about it, I find myself crying. This was one of those times.

Outgoing Longwave Radiation Anomaly
This graph from NASA clearly shows the extent of the severe drought gripping Africa.

Also see my entry here:
Their Animals Are Dead, These People Are Next

Also, Al Gore's recent bestseller, An Inconvenient Truth, also covers the drought and erratic precipitation patterns in Africa due to climate change on pgs. 114-115.

This is the moral challenge of our time on a global scale. However, do we truly have what it takes as a species to meet it? We must, because this certainly can't go on. WE in America who are putting out most of the greenhouse gases that are causing repercussions around the world must see our duty in taking a moral stand on this issue now... EVERY ONE OF US.

We Must Take Africa's Climate Burden