The situation in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi has reached crisis levels.
James Tshuma, a farmer in southwestern Zimbabwe, stands in the middle of his dried-up crop field March, 22, 2024. | Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/APMANGWE, Zimbabwe — Delicately and with intense concentration, Zanyiwe Ncube poured her small share of precious golden cooking oil into a plastic bottle at a food aid distribution site deep in rural Zimbabwe.
A year ago, much of this region was drenched by deadly tropical storms and floods. It is in the midst of a vicious weather cycle: too much rain, then not enough. It’s a story of the climate extremes that scientists say are becoming more frequent and more damaging, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people.
The driest February in Zimbabwe in her lifetime, according to the World Food Programme’s seasonal monitor, put an end to that.The United Nations Children’s Fund says there are “overlapping crises” of extreme weather in eastern and southern Africa, with both regions lurching between storms and floods and heat and drought in the past year.
While human-made climate change has spurred more erratic weather globally, there is something else parching southern Africa this year. Francesca Erdelmann, the World Food Programme’s country director for Zimbabwe, said last year’s harvest was bad, but this season is even worse. “This is not a normal circumstance,” she said.
People are illegally crossing into Botswana to search for food and “hunger is turning otherwise hard-working people into criminals,” he added.Since then, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has said that 1 million of the 2.2 million hectares of his country’s staple corn crop have been destroyed. Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera has appealed for $200 million in humanitarian assistance.
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