Shep­herd­ing and rais­ing ani­mals has been a pop­u­lar occu­pa­tion in Kenya. How­ever, this year’s drought has been killing many goats and is now killing camels. Many fear if these weather pat­terns con­tinue or even worsen, this way of life will no longer exist.

From the BBC, Will Ross gives this account on the drought in Kenya.

Turkana dis­trict in north-west Kenya is a harsh envi­ron­ment at the best of times. Dri­ving along the sandy roads with tem­per­a­tures tip­ping 40C, the air com­ing through the car win­dow feels like the blast from a load of hair-driers.

The land­scape is desert-like and the only signs of life are the occa­sional cir­cu­lar mud huts thatched with grass. There is very lit­tle veg­e­ta­tion — just a few brown thorny shrubs.

In a dry river bed in Lochoraikey, close to the shrink­ing Lake Turkana, men and women gath­ered. The women were on one side — most wear­ing a moun­tain of brightly coloured necklaces.

They were sit­ting in the sand and lying among them were dozens of ema­ci­ated goats — con­cave with pro­trud­ing ribs.

“I had a herd of 100 goats but just in the last month 40 have died,” said Esther Ekouam, who had walked about 15km (10 miles) and had to carry her goat as it was too weak to make the journey.

“Now the chil­dren are very weak because, as the ani­mals are dying, they are not get­ting enough food. This is the worst drought we have had here since 1969.”

Ms Ekouam was prop­ping up the head of her goat. But it appeared the ani­mal was already dead.

The woman behind Ms Ekouam was gen­tly rock­ing a white goat in an attempt to keep it alive. A closer inspec­tion of the group revealed that sev­eral other goats were also dead.

Like

Unlike