Barren Fields and Empty Stomachs: Afghanistan’s Long, Punishing Drought

       In a country especially vulnerable to climate change, a drought has displaced entire villages and left millions of children malnourished.

       The countryside in Samangan Province in north-central Afghanistan, where water for agriculture, and even drinking, is scarce.

       Barren Fields and Empty Stomachs: Afghanistan’s Long, Punishing Drought

       In a country especially vulnerable to climate change, a drought has displaced entire villages and left millions of children malnourished.

       The countryside in Samangan Province in north-central Afghanistan, where water for agriculture, and even drinking, is scarce.Credit...

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       Photographs by Lynsey Addario

       Text by Lynsey Addario and Victoria Kim

       March 19, 2024

       They awake in the mornings to find another family has left. Half of one village, the entirety of the next have departed in the years since the water dried up — in search of jobs, of food, of any means of survival. Those who remain pick apart the abandoned homes and burn the bits for firewood.

       They speak of the lushness that once blessed this corner of southwestern Afghanistan. Now, it’s parched as far as the eye can see. Boats sit on bone-dry banks of sand. What paltry water dribbles out from deep beneath the arid earth is salt-laced, cracking their hands and leaving streaks in their clothes.

       Several years of punishing drought has displaced entire swaths of Afghanistan, one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change, leaving millions of children malnourished and plunging already impoverished families into deeper desperation. And there is no relief in sight.

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       Reza Karimi, 28, left, and his cousin Khanjar Kuchai, 30, extracting wood and kindling last fall from relatives’ abandoned homes in Nimruz Province, in western Afghanistan.

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       Boats on dry land where water used to be in a village in Chakhansur district in Nimruz.

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       Shakiba Sherzayee, 20, preparing to bake bread in the rented home where she and others from her village now live after leaving drought-stricken Chakhansur.

       The map locates six provinces in Afghanistan: Jowzjan, Balkh, Samangan, Badghis, Herat, and Nimruz. It also locates the districts of Kang and Chakhansur in Nimruz province.

       TAJIKISTAN

       TURKMENISTAN

       Jowzjan

       Balkh

       IRAN

       Samangan

       Badghis

       Kabul

       Herat

       Herat

       Wardak

       AFGHANISTAN

       Kang

       District

       Chakhansur

       District

       PAKISTAN

       Nimruz

       200 miles

       By The New York Times

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       Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of her generation, including the Ukraine war, where she has been on assignment regularly for The Times since 2022. More about Lynsey Addario

       Victoria Kim is a reporter based in Seoul and focuses on breaking news coverage across the world. More about Victoria Kim

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