Desolate villages face famine in Madagascar drought

Mrs. Pelazai, 22 years old, walks with her daughter from their village of Taranak’ankilamena, 7 km away, to be consulted by the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic’s medical team in the village of Tanarake, Commune of Sihanamaro, on September 1, 2021. – The MSF team will give her a quantity of food supplements (Plumpy) corresponding to the number of children per household for a period of 15 days.
Since March 2021, MSF has set up a permanent presence in the South of Madagascar, in Amboasary Atsimo and Ambovombe, in order to urgently help populations. Since June 2021, MSF has set up several mobile clinics to treat the most serious cases of moderate and severe malnutrition. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

by RIJASOLO
Agence France-Presse

Nothing to eat, nothing to plant. The last rain in Ifotaka fell in May, for two hours.

Across Madagascar’s vast southern tip, drought has transformed fields into dust bowls. More than one million people face famine.

Across tens of thousands of acres, the countryside is desolate. Harvest season begins in October, leaving long, lean weeks before the meagre crops come in.

A small stall of sweet potatoes near Ambovombe on the National Road 13 (RN13), on September 1, 2021. – The RN13 that links the city of Fort-Dauphin on the Southeast coast and the city of Toliara on the Southwest coast. In the South of Madagascar, the national roads are mostly very bad and this is a real obstacle to the economic development of the region. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

Some villages are abandoned. In others, people should be working the fields, but instead are languishing at home. There’s nothing to reap.

Hunger weighs people down, both in mind and body. They move slowly, and struggle to follow conversation.

“I feel sick, and worried. Every day I wonder what we’re going to eat,” says Helmine Sija, 60 and a mother of six, in a village called Atoby.

Eating cactus and weeds

Mrs. Behora, about 80 years old,pose for a photograph in front of her house in the village of Fenoaivo, Commune Ifotaka, on August 30, 2021. – For lunch, Behora managed to find a half-cup of beans for her and her daughter. But the beans are already spoilt. She still managed to grow onions and small tomatoes in a two-square-meter area.
For several decades the South-East of Madagascar has been a victim of the “Kere” phenomenon, as the local population calls it. Kere is the food crisis due to a period of intense drought that causes a sudden stop of the cultivation of crops by the farmers for several months each year. The farmers are left without money and in a situation of “severe malnutrition” or even starvation. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

A petite woman with grey hair and a hardened face, Sija tends a boiling pot of cactus in front of her home. She chopped the pricks off with a machete to prepare them for cooking.

It can’t really be called food. The concoction has little nutritional value, but it’s a popular appetite suppressant, even though it causes stomach aches.

Helmine Monique Sija, about 50 years old, prepares raketa (cactus) to eat with her daughter Tolie, 10 years old, in the village of Atoby, commune of Behara, on August 30, 2021. – The raketa only helps to cut the feeling of hunger but does not provide any nutrients and is known to give strong stomach aches. It must be boiled for a long time before being eaten.
(Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

Her three oldest children have left home to look for work in other towns. She’s caring for the young ones.

“I want to move somewhere more fertile, where I can farm. But I don’t have enough money to leave,” she says.

Arzel Jonarson, 47, a former cassava farm worker, now gathers firewood to sell, earning about a 25 US cents a week. Enough to buy one bowl of rice.

Families of beneficiaries wait outside the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic in the village of Tanarake, Commune of Sihanamaro, on September 1, 2021. – Since March 2021, MSF has set up a permanent presence in the South of Madagascar, in Amboasary Atsimo and Ambovombe, in order to urgently help populations. Since June 2021, MSF has set up several mobile clinics to treat the most serious cases of moderate and severe malnutrition. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

In Ankilidoga, an elderly couple and their daughter are making a meal of wild herbs, which they season with salt to cut the bitterness. In better times, these were cast off as weeds. But their crops of corn, cassava and sweet potato have failed.

Their village does have a reservoir to collect rain water. No one can remember the last time it was full.

Children play near a water tank in the village of Ankilidoga, Commune of Sampona, on August 31, 2021. – The water tank was built free of charge to collect rainwater. The inhabitants can’t remember when this tank was last filled.
(Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

“I haven’t received any aid for two months,” said Kazy Zorotane, a 30-year-old single mother of four. “That last time, in June, the government gave me some money.”

About $26 (22 euros).

Climate crisis

Malnutrition afflicts southern Madagascar regularly. But the current drought is the worst in 40 years, according to the United Nations, which blames climate change for the crisis.

Around the town of Ifotaka, people said the government had brought some rice, beans and oil. But that was in August. Of 500 people designated for financial aid, about 90 received the $26.

A nurse from the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic vaccinates a baby against tuberculosis, polio and measles in the village of Tanarake, Commune of Sihanamaro, on September 1, 2021. – Since March 2021, MSF has set up a permanent presence in the South of Madagascar, in Amboasary Atsimo and Ambovombe, in order to urgently help populations. Since June 2021, MSF has set up several mobile clinics to treat the most serious cases of moderate and severe malnutrition. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

Doctors Without Borders has dispatched a mobile clinic to travel from village to village. Children clutch at packets of “plumpy”, a peanut butter-flavoured paste designed to help the severely malnourished.

Through the waiting crowds, nurses and aides spot the most urgent cases, guiding them to the front of the line. Small children are weighed in a blue bucket.

Beneficiaries wait their turn to be consulted by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic medical staff in the village of Tanarake, Commune of Sihanamaro, on September 1, 2021. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

Measuring tapes are wrapped around their tiny arms, to get an indication of just how acutely malnourished they are.

In Befeno, another village, nine-year-old Zapedisoa came with his grandmother. He’s sluggish, his eyes look vacant. At 20 kilos (44 pounds), he’s showing alarming symptoms, and is given medicine and food supplements.

Fitamantsoa (L), the father of Satinompeo (C), a 5-year-old girl who weighs only 11 kg and shows signs of severe malnutrition, accompanies her while she is consulted urgently by Dr. Lina Soatineza (R), a doctor at the mobile clinic of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in the village of Befeno, Commune Marovato, on September 2, 2021. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)

Satinompeo, a five-year-old with short hair, weighs only 11 kilos. She’s severely malnourished, but she’s terrified of the doctors. She hangs onto her father’s yellow shorts and cries.

Families are sent home with a two-week food supply, based on the number of children in the house.

In Fenoaivo, two sisters and a brother, all retirees, share a home.

“It’s been a long time since we grew anything. On good, days, the three of us share a bowl of rice,” said Tsafaharie, 69.

At another home in this town, a 45-year-old man holds watch over his father’s body.

While it is hard to determine an accurate death toll from hunger, that is why he died in in June, his family say.

“We don’t have enough money to buy a (cow) to feed mourners, so we can’t have a funeral,” Tsihorogne Monja said.

The corpse is in a separate hut, partially covered by a cloth.

“My father was very hungry. He ate too much cactus and tuber bark. That’s what killed him. It’s like he was poisoned.”

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