Chadian farmers suffer from intensifying drought and take stock of their losses

Wazifira is one of the two regions hardest hit by the drought in Chad. Just a few kilometers outside Biltine, the regional capital, farmers take stock of their devastating losses. This is. All the millets you see here came from three hectares of farmlands. Some fields yielded nothing at all. We sowed 40 coras of seed each, and the result? Nothing, not a single plant to harvest. Across the border, Sudan's Darfur region is also suffering its worst drought since 1984. Large numbers of people have begun crossing into Chad. This farmer was born and raised in Biltine and suspects his region now has little to offer the refugees. Of course they can come. There's land here, there's space. If this area fills up, we can find room over there. That's not the problem. But really, there's no point. You can't live here. Without water, there's no way to make it work. Government agencies and NGOs are sounding the alarm. Around Biltine rainfall this year was just a quarter of last year's total. I don't know what to say. Last year we had good rainfall. We recorded around 400 millimetres, enough for crops to reach maturity. We have also recorded about 400 mm. This year, by contrast, we've recorded just 100 millimetres. This is 100mm. Mohamed Salih Tahir is the president of an NGO which supports both Chadian communities and Sudanese refugees. He's preparing to head to COP 31 in Turkey, where he hopes to raise international awareness of how profoundly climate change has affected those he works with. Before we proceed, I'm out of here. What we need specifically are new high-capacity boreholes. They would provide water for household use and allow vulnerable families to grow vegetables. De faire des cultures maraîchères avec, c'est une coque de mise. This COP is about implementation, and we want concrete action. Pledges and speeches belong in the past. Now is the time to act. The World Food Programme fears that next year, the drought will force more than 3 million Chadians without enough to eat daily.