A green island turns red: Madagascans struggle through long drought
ABC News
A green island turns red: Madagascans struggle through long drought
With precious few trees left to slow the wind in this once fertile corner of southern Madagascar, red sand is blowing everywhere: onto fields, villages and roads, and into the eyes of children waiting for food aid parcels.
Four years of drought, the worst in decades, along with deforestation caused by people burning or cutting down trees to make charcoal or to open up land for farming, have transformed the area into a dust bowl.
"There's nothing to harvest. That's why we have nothing to eat and we're starving," said mother-of-seven Tarira, standing at a remote World Food Programme post where children are checked for signs of malnutrition and given food.
More than a million people in southern Madagascar currently need food handouts from the WFP, a United Nations agency.
