"AMBOASARY SUD, Madagascar - Some days, all Tsimamorekm Aly eats is sugary water. He's happy if there's a handful of rice. But with six young kids and a wife to support, he often goes without.

This is the fourth year that drought has devastated Aly's home in southern Madagascar. Now more than one million people, or two out of five residents, of his Grand Sud region require emergency food aid in what the United Nations is calling a "climate change famine."

"In previous years there was rain, a lot of rain. I grew sweet potatoes and I had a lot of money... I even got married because I was rich," said Aly, 44.

"Things have changed," he said, standing on an expanse of ochre dirt where the only green to be seen is tall, spiky cacti."

Joel Kouam reports for Reuters October 11, 2021. [2]