ONE of the worst droughts in living memory is sweeping across southern Africa, leaving close to 70 million people without enough food and water.
In Mudzi district in northern Zimbabwe, a community and their livestock are gathered on a bone-dry riverbed. The Vombozi normally flows throughout the year but right now, it is just beige sand as far as the eye can see.
Armed with shovels and buckets, the men are digging into the river floor, desperately trying to extract the last drops of water from it.
Rivers and dams have dried up in other parts of the district and as a result more and more people are descending on this specific riverbed in Kurima village, putting pressure on the water source.
Along the riverbed are several holes, large enough to fit a single bucket.
Children are bathing, women are doing laundry and giving their bellowing cattle drinks of water.
Gracious Phiri, a mother of five, stands among these women. The 43-year-old tells the BBC she now has to walk further than usual, spending three hours every day travelling to fetch water.
Ms Phiri lowers her bucket into the half-metre (19in) wide hole and draws brown-coloured water. She worries about her family getting sick.
“As you can see, the cattle are drinking from the same pit as us. Their urine is right there… it is not very healthy,” she says.
“I have never seen anything like this.”
Food is also in short supply in Zimbabwe where 7.7 million people face hunger. In Mudzi the number of families who have access to a sufficient amount of affordable, nutritious food has dropped by more than half compared to previous years, the local health authority says.
Children have been particularly impacted – since June hospital admissions for youngsters with moderate to severe malnutrition have doubled.
