‘We are the living dead’: Drought-hit Tunisian villages battle isolation | Climate Crisis

Tunisian villager Ounissa Mazhoud ties two empty jerry cans to a donkey and cautiously descends a stony hill in direction of the final native supply of water.

The North African nation, in its fourth yr of drought, is grappling with its worst water shortage in years.

Mazhoud – like different ladies within the distant village of Ouled Omar, 180km (110 miles) southwest of the capital, Tunis – wakes up each morning with one factor on her thoughts: discovering water.

“We’re the dwelling useless … forgotten by everybody,” stated Mazhoud, 57, whose area was as soon as one in every of Tunisia’s most fertile, recognized for its wheat fields and Aleppo pines.

“We have now no roads, no water, no support, no first rate housing, and we personal nothing,” she stated, including that the closest supply of water is a river about an hour’s arduous stroll away.

Offering water for his or her households, she stated, signifies that “our backs, heads and knees harm, as a result of we labour from daybreak to nightfall”.

Some villagers have felt pushed to maneuver to city areas or overseas.

Ounissa’s cousin, Djamila Mazhoud, 60, stated her son and two daughters had all left seeking higher lives.

“We educated our kids in order that after we develop outdated, they deal with us, however they couldn’t,” she stated.

“Individuals are both unemployed or eaten by the fish within the sea,” she added, utilizing a standard phrase for migrants who try the damaging sea voyages for Europe.

Complete households have already left the village, stated Djamila.

“Their homes stay empty,” she stated, explaining that aged individuals really feel they haven’t any alternative however to comply with their little kids.

“Can an 80-year-old go to the river to get water?”