In Pictures

Gallery

In pictures: The Sahel drought

Eight countries across West Africa face a humanitarian crisis, as millions of people go hungry.

67-year-old Zeneba Louki sits on the left, with Etta Brahim, 36, outside her home in northern Chad with her children and sister, Ashta Hamid, in red. The whole family must survive for a week on the food in the white bag.
Published On 25 Jun 2012

More than 15 million people are being affected by a drought which has swept West Africa. Their lives are at risk, say aid agencies, due to the combined effects of poor weather conditions, including severe heat and low rainfall, with poor governance and low levels of infrastructure to handle such extreme shifts in the climate.

Eight countries in the region have been hit, leading to widely fluctuating prices for both animals and grain. In turn, this economic instability has left farmers and others unsure if they will be able to survive on the proceeds from selling their emaciated animals.

Rivers have dried up, grain stores are empty, and what water is available from aging wells is often contaminated with parasites – leading to widespread disease and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to migrate, placing additional burdens on scant resources. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said that more than a million children face acute malutrition in Mali alone. 

Organisations such as Oxfam are refurbishing wells and attempting to provide aid to those most affected in order to help tackle what Dubai filmmaker Ali Mostafa described as potentially “the worst food crisis of all time”.

Advertisement
Pastoralist Louki Abdraman said he lost 21 camels during the last dry season in the Bahr el Ghazal region of Chad. Water from non-renovated wells is of poor quality and causes intestinal worms or mouth ulcers in his camels, eventually killing them.
Advertisement
Fatima Mahammad Aki, a 25-year-old resident of Andrabadi village in northern Chad, is attempting to build a new shelter for her and her family of four children.
Grazing areas for livestock are fast disappearing, and livelihoods are being threatened as desertification takes its grip, encouraging pastoralists in northern Chad - such as 25-year-old Fatima Mahamad Ali - to build new homes in the search for suitable areas for their animals to feed.
On the move through the dry dusty landscape - drought and decreasing water reserves in Burkina Faso have resulted in failed crops and a lack of pastures.
Northern Chad is home to 36-year-old Etta Brahim Senussi and her two two-year-old children (L-R), Mohamed Ali and Fatima Moussa. The country is one of eight in West Africa facing drought conditions and a humanitarian crisis.
This ecologically fragile region is becoming increasingly vulnerable to insufficient rainfall, and fluctuating animal and food prices are affecting millions of pastoralists, resulting in potentially grave uncertainty on the road to markets such as in Moussoro, in the Bahr El Ghazal province of northern Chad.
Advertisement
Emaciated cattle walk along a dried-out riverbed, as the drought has caused crops and pasture to fail in Burkina Faso.
Kadija Dgarde is finding it harder to find the wood both uses and sells in Guera province, Chad.
In 2012, several countries across the Sahel region are once again facing a serious food crisis, as desertification takes its grip, such as here in Bahr El Ghazal province, Northern Chad.
Hawa Ahmat leads a camel as she takes her four sheep to sell at the market in Moussoro, Bahr El Ghazal province in northern Chad - yet with widely fluctuating prices, she doesn(***)t know if what she receives will be enough to survive on.
The drought in Burkina Faso has resulted in a lack of crops and pasture, as well as decreasing water reserves. Millions of people across the region - such as Fatimata Sawadogo and her son, Abou Waha from Garagui village in the north of Burkina Faso - are food insecure.
Dubai filmmaker Ali Mostafa visited an organic cotton cooperative near Bougouni in Mali on behalf of Oxfam. The group is rehabilitating wells and attempting to provide further humanitarian relief. Ali Mostafa has now recorded a video appeal to help Oxfam(***)s campaign - watch it here.