Daily Times

Chad climate disaster: Severe drought followed by the worst floods in 30 years has led to rocketing food prices and left a record 2.1 million people in Chad acutely hungry, according to United Nations agencies.

As a result of the climate disaster, 10% of all children under five are affected by severe malnutrition, and one in three will suffer from stunted growth, said the United Nations children’s fund.

On a bed at the Notre Dame des Apotres Hospital in the capital N’Djamena, Fatimé Mahamat Idriss feeds her gaunt toddler through a feeding tube.

When the harvest failed, her husband sought work in a gold mine in the north, leaving no food for their three children.

Chad’s total population is 16.4 million, according to the World Bank.

Climate change interacts with and compounds existing risks and vulnerabilities present in communities. This, in turn, increasingly affects livelihoods and human security across Africa. The Lake Chad Basin is a prime example; in the 1960s, Lake Chad had an area of more than 26,000 km². By 1997, it had shrunk to less than 1,500 km², and further to 1,350 km² by 2014. Decades of depletion due to climate variabilities have contributed to fueling insecurity in local communities whose economic livelihoods depend on the lake, leading to a humanitarian crisis across the Lake Chad Basin. Countries surrounding the Lake Chad Basin, including Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, have been confronted with violent extremism and terrorism, in addition to ethnic, religious, and farmer-herder conflicts.