“Each year, we witness a further drop in rainfall – which translates to a drop in produce – resulting in us not having enough food to consume, let alone sell,” Debele Coulibaly, deputy chief of the small village of Safekora in central Mali, told me earlier this year.
Sitting under a tree to shield himself from the scorching sun, he explained how farming has always been the only source of income in the village with 1,400 inhabitants, and climate change has left him and countless others struggling to provide for their families.
Some villagers, he told me, resorted to cutting and selling trees to make money and feed their families – a counterproductive practice that speeds up desertification and ends up amplifying the worst effects of the changing climate.
Farmers in Safekora are not alone in their hopeless struggle against climate change. The whole of Mali, a nation of more than 22 million, is suffering immensely as a result of rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall. Between April 1 and April 5, an unprecedented heatwave caused temperatures to climb to more than 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) across the country. During the four-day hot spell, the Gabriel Toure University Hospital in the Malian capital, Bamako, recorded more than 100 deaths.
The same hospital had recorded 130 deaths for the entire month of March before the temperatures soared. According to a study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA), the unusually intense and lethal hot spell was caused by “human-induced” climate change and likely caused hundreds, if not thousands, more excess deaths across the region. The record-breaking temperatures devastated Mali so much that ice cubes began costing more than bread and milk in some parts of the country.
Sadly in Mali, climate change is just one cause of humanitarian crisis among many. Long-term political instability, protracted armed conflict and seemingly endless economic struggles, combined with the effect of climate change on people’s livelihoods (according to the World Food Programme, agriculture – predominately subsistence production – represents 80 percent of employment in Mali), created a perfect storm of vulnerability in the country. Millions are displaced, hungry and fearful for the future. Today, some 7.1 million people, corresponding to one-third of Mali’s population, need urgent humanitarian assistance. According to the World Health Organization, the national rate of severe acute malnutrition, which is the deadliest form of hunger, rose from 4.2 percent last year to 11 percent today, the highest level in a decade.
Especially in sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) across the country, thousands of them, especially children below five years of age, are in urgent need of nutritional care.
Idrissa, one of the 355,000 IDPs, was displaced internally due to increasing violence. He escaped his conflict-affected village, Mopti, earlier this year and made the 600km (373-mile) journey to Bamako with his family to start afresh.
I talked to him in his family’s new makeshift home in Commune VI, which is an IDP camp in the compound of a former state school. “As armed conflict and gun violence erupted in my village, I had to make a quick decision to uproot my family,” he told me. “I have already lost two of my relatives, and I could not stand by and watch to lose more of my family members.”
His family may now be relatively safe from armed conflict, but their life is not easy. The overcrowded IDP camp is full of large families experiencing extreme poverty. Even the animals in the camp are starving and there is a dangerous lack of sanitation, resulting in a high risk of disease outbreaks.
Idrissa currently lives in a one-bedroom sheet tent with his wife, four children and frail elderly mother. He struggles to put food on the table, let alone seek more appropriate accommodation, on the small income he earns from his part-time job as a security guard.
He says as well as his children, he is especially worried about his ailing mother, whose many health problems are exacerbated as a result of the horrible conditions in the camp. She, however, does not have easy access to care.
The deteriorating security situation, coupled with the devastating effect of climate change on livelihoods and abominable conditions in most IDP camps, has resulted in thousands of people across the country needing urgent treatment for conditions such as respiratory infections, acute malnutrition, malaria, and diarrhoea. Despite the population’s ever-increasing healthcare needs, public health facilities in many regions, especially in the north and the centre, are not fully functional due to insecurity and a lack of staff and supplies. As a result, it is estimated that 3.5 million people across the country, like Idrissa’s elderly mother, are struggling to access healthcare.
With no free medical facilities available, the only viable solution for Idrissa is to take his mother to a private clinic. His wages do not cover her medical bills and the basic needs of their household. As a result, he often skips the one meal he allows himself a day to try and pay all his bills and feed his family.
With a dejected look on his face, he told me he longs for the life he once had.
“The life we held dear was snatched away from us,” he said. “I was a herder; my life was great. I had to leave behind my cherished animals and way of life. My only dream is to return home and work in my field again.”
Coulibaly and Idrissa, like millions of others across Mali, are trying to come to terms with their new reality and find a way forward for themselves and their families.
Humanitarian organisations like the organisation I work for, Muslim Hands, are partnering with the Malian community to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change. By providing sustainable livelihoods and opportunities for a fresh start, these efforts aim to empower vulnerable families and build long-term resilience.
Mali is experiencing a multifaceted humanitarian crisis that will only deepen without urgent help from the international community. Yet, beyond the efforts of organisations like Muslim Hands, the world seems to be turning a blind eye to the suffering of people who are dealing with the combined consequences of a devastating conflict and a climate emergency. It is high time for everyone, especially world leaders and international institutions, to turn their attention to Mali and its perfect storm.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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