VOSBURG, South Africa (AP) – Residents call this drought-stricken community a “forgotten town.”
The flat, dusty roads to Vosburg are surrounded by withered fields. The streams feeding the community of a few thousand people have gone dry. Signs warn drivers of wandering cattle and sheep but there are none in sight.
The months-long drought is affecting most of southern Africa. The United Nations estimates that more than 11 million people now face crisis levels of food insecurity in places like Zimbabwe and Mozambique, where two cyclones wiped out crops earlier this year.
Among the hardest hit areas is South Africa’s Northern Cape province, where many farmers are struggling to keep their families and animals alive while revenue falls and debt piles up.
Commercial sheep farmer Louis van der Merwe, 64, broke down as he described losing more than 400 sheep and 450 springboks in the past two years because of the worst drought he has seen in 45 years of farming.