Mongolian drought threatens starvation for herders
Mongolian herders are facing nothing less than the complete annihilation of their way of life as the country’s worst drought in living memory draws ever onward.
Having suffered one of their worst winters on record, in which 3.3 million head of livestock froze or starved to death, many herders are now abandoning their nomadic way of life and migrating to the urban areas.
In Bayankhongor province, there is literally nothing left. All but the most rudimentary vegetation has gone and the soil that once supported verdant grasslands is being lost forever from being dried to dust and then blown away.
In a cruel twist of fate, the sandstorms created from this process are themselves adding to the destruction, by crushing buildings with their weight and speed. In Jinst county, for instance, people shovelled away thousands of tons of sand after a recent sandstorm killed 10,000 animals in one day.
Deprived of their only source of income, and without any form of social security to fall back on, the herders and their families are themselves now facing starvation. In the urban areas to which many are retreating, social problems are becoming endemic and the government appears powerless to do anything to help.
In a land where nobody could have predicted how bad the situation would become, one thing is for certain. If rain does not arrive within the next few weeks, the threat of starvation will become a reality.
