« Newer Posts |
Older Posts »
The waters of Lake Chad, one of Africa’s great lakes, currently sustain about 30 million people in Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger; its water basin reaches Sudan, Libya, Algeria and CAR. CAR, Sudan But since 1963, as a result of global warming, the magnificent lake has shrunk by 90%. Experts predict that within 20 years the lake will have dried up altogether creating an unprecedented famine in a place already plagued by hunger. Fishermen say their catch is down by 60%-and the fish are small. Farming villages, once able to produce plenty of crops can do nothing with the desiccated land, villagers are moving with the Sahara-at the rate of one mile a year in Bahai at the very edge of the Sahara in eastern Chad’s borderland with Darfur and Libya.
“If Lake Chad dries up, 30 million people will have no means of a livelihood, and that is a big security problem because of growing competition for smaller quantities of water,” said Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, executive secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission.
“Poverty and hunger will increase. When there is no food to eat, there is bound to be violence.”
«Newer Posts |
Older Posts »
