How lack of four rainy seasons has created chaos for Kenyan pastoralists Why are we fighting floods and droughts at the same time? Kenya'...

How lack of four rainy seasons has created chaos for Kenyan pastoralists

Why are we fighting floods and droughts at the same time?

Kenya's Lake Turkana is expanding rapidly despite the absence of four rainy seasons, devastating the livelihoods of pastoralists affected by human-caused climate change, BBC Newsnight's Joe Inwood reports.

Sitting on the dry, cracked soil that was once her pasture, Anna Elibit is a woman living in danger.

Just a few yards from where we speak is a scene that looks like something out of a horror movie.

Dozens of goat carcasses are lying in the dust, their decay is a manifestation of the unbearable drought that this part of northwestern Kenya has endured for more than two years.

"This is the worst drought I've ever seen in my life," the 48-year-old tells me. Along with much of East Africa, the Lake Turkana region has now experienced four failed rainy seasons, killing hundreds of thousands of animals and causing millions of people to face starvation.

What is surprising about Mrs. Elibit's situation, however, is that a few months earlier she lost hundreds more animals, not to drought but to floods.

He used to live by Lake Turkana, the huge body of water that dominates this part of Kenya which for the past few years has been expanding, sometimes slowly, sometimes in floods that are said to wash away entire villages.

It is estimated to have expanded by more than 10% in the last decade, consuming nearly 800 square kilometers (308 square miles) of land.

The day the mother of 10 was forced from her home in August 2020 is a vividly painful memory: "The water level started to rise and cover our houses. Then suddenly, our animals took over as we fled to land."

But after a short stay, disaster struck again: "The water followed us again and the worst thing happened. We lost a large number of animals to the flood after the pasture area was covered by the raging water."

A few miles down the road, passing the squalid IDP camps, we arrive at the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI). This scientific research academy is world-renowned for its work to understand the origins of our species. Fossils and fossils discovered here have helped establish this area as the place where all our ancestors came from.

But for Dr. Dino Martins, the new Director of the center, the most important issues now are not related to the past of human life, but its future, while predicting another unprecedented season of lack of rain.

"It might even fail again next year, which would have pushed people into a very bad place." An area suffering from floods and droughts at the same time may seem contradictory, but it is the result of the biggest change in climate systems that all scientists say is the result of human-caused climate change.

A few years ago a weather system called the Indian Ocean Dipole caused heavy rain to fall in East Africa.

As well as causing misery at the time, it also filled the land that feeds the great lakes of Kenya's Rift Valley, including Lake Turkana.

Those two years of heavy rain have now been followed by this unprecedented drought. Dr Martins says that although the damage is caused by international factors, domestic actions have made the situation worse.

"What's happening here is an ecosystem that's going through changes due to these extremes. A few years ago we had more rain than we've had in decades. Normally that rain would filter into the ecosystem slowly, but that's changing because of the destruction of environment."

Deforestation in the highlands has meant that water moves through the system faster to fill Lake Turkana.

Add to that the overgrazing blamed for the explosion in the goat and sheep population, and Turkana is facing severe storms.

The effects can be seen on the faces of those we meet at the malnutrition hospital in the nearby Kakuma camp.

The sprawling city of tents and shacks is home to about 200,000 people, most of them refugees from conflicts in neighboring countries.

The center is run by the International Rescue Committee and cares for hundreds of babies, many of them in critical condition.

Paulina Lomojong feeds her son Isuuwat with specially prepared milk - silent tears stream down her face.

Her condition has improved, but she still looks smaller than she should for 13 months. "The price of food has gone up a lot," says Ms Lomojong, who lives in a village outside the camp.

"A kilo of maize flour is 120 Kenyan shillings [$1; £0.90], but when you cook it is not enough for the family. Some of us go to bed hungry."

But lack of food is not the only way the drought has affected his family; scarcity leads to conflicts and last April it cost her husband's life.

"My husband crossed into South Sudan to find pasture for his livestock. There was an attack where he was killed, leaving me a widow.

The community there attacked each other during the drought to recover their lost livestock." Vincent Opina, who runs the center, predicts worse things to come: "What we expect is an increase in malnourished children in the ward. We also see people all over here facing extreme hunger. If nothing is done, there is a possibility of losing many children."

Agriculture without soil is the answer?

Food conflicts in Turkana are not new. Indeed, there has been a food emergency response in this area for decades.

It has led to criticism, including from Dr Martins, that major changes are needed. "We need to make that success in our thinking that this environment is not only a place to send food aid but a place that can take responsibility for its own food production.

"It is getting worse every year... more and more food aid is given, but that is not a sustainable way."

He takes me to the institute's hydroponics garden. It looks more basic than the name suggests, with rows upon rows of beige tubes laid in the ground, leaves sticking out of them giving the appearance of a semi-living tree.

This efficient and low-cost irrigation system was originally developed to feed people living and working in TBI, but Dr Martins thinks it could also help alleviate many of the region's problems.

"In an ideal world, we would see these bubbling up across Turkana, using the abundant water resources that are in the ground in the rivers, and producing food sustainably in a way that gives people dignity." Not only honor, but also a chance in the future.

Dr Martins tells me there are real debates taking place about whether this environment, and the pastoralist lifestyle it has supported for millennia, will be able to withstand the current crisis. At Mrs. Elibit's house, she has had the same thoughts: "Hunger is haunting us. "We have nothing to rely on after our animals die due to drought. I don't think my life will ever go back to normal."