Malawi goes thirsty as temperatures rise
In Dame Village, Malawi, the sound of water no longer means life—it means struggle. Every morning, 45-year-old Nasimita Lingilirani joins a weary procession of women and children armed with buckets, jerrycans, and fading hope. They gather around the village’s only borehole, praying it still has a few reluctant drops left to give. On many days, it doesn’t. “When it dries, we have no choice but to scoop from shallow wells,” she tells me, her eyes darting toward the dusty ground. “But the water makes us sick. Still, what else can we do? Without it, we die.” This isn’t just about thirst. It’s about survival. Across Malawi—and much of Africa—the climate crisis has left families gasping not only for water, but for dignity, health, and food. Fields lie barren, livestock waste away, and hunger hovers like an unwelcome shadow over communities already stretched to the breaking point. Researched and published by New Delhi (India)-based fortnightly Down To Earth and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the State of Africa’s Environment 2025 draws on investigative reportage by African journalists and was released at a communicators’ and journalists’ briefing organised with the Alliance for Science–Ethiopia and the Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA), Kenya. The report covers adaptation, carbon markets, climate debt, migration, food security, water and health. It warns that climate-induced migration is emerging as a major concern: “By 2050. Up to 5 per cent of Africa’s population of some two billion people could be forced to be on the move due to climate change. However the report released last week, puts numbers to what villages like Dama already know too well: this is the deadliest climate crisis Africa has faced in over a decade. The statistics are chilling. In just five years, extreme weather events across 23 African countries claimed 69,220 lives—more than the entire previous decade combined. Malawi alone lost 1,807 people, many swept away by floods or starved by droughts that left crops withered before harvest. But numbers don’t show the full story. Human faces do. In villages like Dame, mothers are burying children who die from cholera after drinking from contaminated wells. Farmers are walking away from fields scorched by the sun, their seeds and sweat wasted. Young girls are missing school because fetching water now takes hours instead of minutes. For families who once lived on the margins, climate change has pushed them into free fall. Sunita Narain, Director General of CSE, put it bluntly: “We must keep going. Let’s continue with conversation. We must work together and focus on solutions.” But solutions remain painfully out of reach for those who are living the crisis daily.