Diminished rainfall, combined with soaring temperatures, has jeopardized the food security and energy supplies of millions of people in the region.
Southern Africa is suffering through its worst drought in several decades and perhaps a century. Diminished and late rainfall, combined with long-term increases in temperatures, have jeopardized the food security and energy supplies of millions of people in the region, most acutely in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), at least 11 million people are facing food shortages due to drought. Grain production is down 30 percent across the region; in Zimbabwe, where they are close to running out of their staple crop of maize, it is down 53 percent. Livestock farmers in southern Africa have suffered losses due to starvation and to early culling of herds forced by shortages of water and feed.
“This year’s drought is unprecedented, causing food shortages on a scale we have never seen here before,” said Michael Charles, head of IFRC’s Southern Africa group. “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.”
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