The Deadliest Drought in Recent History: An Introduction
With roughly 70 million people going hungry and without water, Southern Africa is experiencing one of the worst droughts in recent memory. Damage to cattle, crops, and towns is catastrophic as a result of the drought that is sweeping the area.
A Community Fights for Water in Mudzi District
An eerie sight plays out in the northern Zimbabwean region of Mudzi as a group of people and their animals congregate on the parched riverbed of the Zambezi River. The once-dependable Vombozi is now little more than a vast expanse of beige sand devoid of any water whatsoever. Digging into the riverbed with shovels and buckets, the community tries to retrieve the remainder of the water.
Things are looking bad. The district’s rivers and dams have dried up, leaving the riverbed in Kurima village as the only source of water for an increasing number of people. There is a severe strain on the diminishing water supply due to the growing demand. Children wash their bodies, mothers do laundry, and cattle drink from homemade wells constructed in the riverbed that is big enough to hold a single bucket.
Gracious Phiri, a mother of five who is 43 years old, is one of those people who is having trouble getting water. The three-hour trek to the riverbed to get water has grown more taxing for her daily. She worries about the health dangers to her family as she lowers her bucket into a half-meter-wide pit and pulls water that is brown in hue.
Food Insecurity in Zimbabwe: A Critical Situation
As a result of the drought, 7.7 million people in Zimbabwe are going hungry. In Mudzi, the local health authority reports that the number of families with access to affordable, nutritious food has decreased by almost 50% compared to prior years. Hospital admissions for malnutrition have doubled since June, highlighting the disproportionate burden on youngsters.
There is now a local feeding program in place to try to stop people from going hungry. The ladies in the neighborhood get together once a week to whip up a nutritious porridge for kids under the age of five using whatever produce they happen to have on hand. To make the porridge more nutritious, we add things like peanut butter, ground baobab fruit, milk, and green leafy vegetables. But as a result of bad harvests, essentials like beans and cow-peas are becoming unavailable, and the list of ingredients is getting shorter by the week.
In its early stages, the government’s feeding program was implemented three times weekly with the help of organizations like UNICEF. Nevertheless, the program is now only broadcasted once weekly as a result of the drought caused by El Niño. The program might have to end if food supplies keep decreasing, says Kudzai Madamombe, medical officer of the Mudzi district, who claims that the drought has caused a complete failure of the crops.
Effects on Medical Care and Food Production
Healthcare in Mudzi has also been affected by the drought. A fourth of the district’s clinics are without water because their boreholes have dried up, cutting off their access to basic necessities. There is hardly enough water to last a month left in the district’s main dam, which is almost empty.
This has led to the suspension of vegetable irrigation systems, which had previously helped 200 local farmers, and has only made food shortages worse. People are suffering all around. Farmers like Tambudzai Mahachi, who used to sell their produce in Harare’s marketplaces, are now fighting for food for their own families.
The Growing Famine in Southern Africa
Not only has the drought-hit Zimbabwe hard, but it has also caused one-third of southern African countries to declare a state of calamity. Nearly 68 million people in the area are begging for food assistance. Very little of the $5.5 billion requested by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to mitigate the drought’s impact has actually been received.
The situation will probably worsen, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). The World Food Program has only gotten $200 million out of the $400 million required for immediate aid, and the area is facing its worst corn shortage in fifteen years. October, the hottest and driest month of the year, is just around the corner, adding fuel to the fire of the already-escalating hunger and water crisis.
Looking Ahead with Doubt
There is still a long way to go for those who are working along the riverbed of the Vombozi. Although farmers may find some respite when the rainy season begins in November or December, they will still have to wait until March to harvest corn. Meanwhile, the sense of dread and panic is just intensifying.
Cracking open a piece of wild fruit to quench her hunger, Tambudzai Mahachi thinks about the difficulties her small family would face in the future. In the midst of one of the worst droughts in recent memory, millions of people in southern Africa are on the verge of starvation, and their future is filled with uncertainty.
