Photos: Once fruitful, Libyan village suffers amid climate crisis
Al Jazeera
Pounded by sun and dry winds, trees struggle to bear fruit as Kabaw in the Nafusa Mountains faces a lack of rainfall.
In the Libyan village of Kabaw in the Nafusa Mountains, Mohamed Maakaf waters an ailing fig tree as climate change pushes villagers to forsake lands and livestock.
Kabaw was once flourishing and known for its figs, olives and almonds. Now its fields are mostly barren and battered by climate change-induced drought.
The area about 200km (125 miles) southwest of Tripoli was once “green and prosperous until the beginning of the millennium”, Maakaf recalled. “People loved to come here and take walks, but today it has become so dry that it’s unbearable.”
“We no longer see the green meadows we knew in the 1960s and ’70s,” added the 65-year-old, wearing a traditional white tunic and sirwal trousers.
Kabaw, like many villages in the Nafusa Mountains, is primarily inhabited by Amazigh people, a non-Arab minority.
