climate change in Madagascar:

Madagascar is a huge island nation near to the
south-african coast

Madagascar offers really many great things e.g.
thousands of animal species that only occur in
Madagascar, beaches, rainforests and reefs. But
even if Madagascar can be very beautiful, there
are unfortunately also very large areas that are
suffering greatly due to climate change.

A 30-year-old woman named Bole lives in
Madagascar. Unfortunately, her husband passed
away, which means that she has to take care of
her 3 children alone. They have to forage for
cactus leaves daily, then cut off the piles and then
steam those leaves to then eat them.

The regions of Androy, Ambovombe and
Amboasary, for example in the very south of the
island state, have not suddenly slipped into a
crisis, the area is already considered one of the
poorest in the world. At the beginning of the year,
there were already indications of how intense it
would be. In the village of Ankilomarovahatra,
Toharano, a mother, has to bury her children as
early as January.
„My children didn't eat for three days and then
died because I, their mother, couldn't feed them.
I'm sure it was the famine that killed them. It's not
something else, it's not Covid-19, it's hunger.“

Now it's about fighting hunger. You can also hear
the desperation of Dame Zafendraza when she
talks about what they eat to survive - white clay:
„If we had food, if our saliva was enough, we
would never have eaten it. But it's true that we
didn't know before that white clay was edible. We
tried mixing it and it worked.“

Basic needs are a distant dream for the family: a
safe home, clean clothes, a meal. In the nearby
forest, which has not yet been cut down, they
look for something to eat. Havanay is one of
Sinzhay's sons. He describes it like this:
„We eat wild roots, but we can't cook them. We
put them in the pot, cover them with water, but
they remain raw. The roots are always hard. We
eat them, but they don't fill us up. My stomach
hurts and I have diarrhea. When I go to the toilet,
my stools are yellow and sometimes bloody. I
would like a blanket, clothes and sandals. But
most of all I want to eat something.“
(Tagesschau, 11/05/2021)