Friday, February 25, 2022

The Agony in Angola

 Southwest Angola has been experiencing its worst drought for the past 40 years.

It has forced thousands of people to flock to neighbouring Namibia after failed harvests and rising food prices worsened food shortages across the region.

The southwest provinces of Huila, Namibe and Cunene in Angola have been among the hardest hit by intermittent locust infestations and a drought which has put 1.58 million people at risk of severe hunger, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

Ever since Angola’s civil war ended in 2002, a large part of the communal grazing land on the southwest tip of the country has been taken over by commercial livestock farms. 

According to a report by Amnesty International, 67 percent of that land is now occupied by commercial cattle ranches. In the past, local pastoralists would have been able to use these grazing areas to feed their cattle during periods of drought.

Angola’s climate refugees on ‘a journey with no end’ | Climate Crisis | Al Jazeera

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