As Climate Heat Lowers Africa’s Great Rivers, Migration Cartels Maximize Profits From Farmers on the Move

Earth Island Journal looks at how climate-induced extreme heat is hammering rural farmers, and also dramatically lowering water volumes in the Limpopo, one of Africa’s "Big Rivers."

As climate heat takes a toll on production, more impoverished rural farmers are displaced by new realities and choosing to pay criminal cartels so that they can be smuggled as undocumented migrants into South Africa, the wealthiest economy on the continent. For smuggling cartels, drier rivers are a gift; they make navigation quite easy.

On arrival in South Africa, undocumented migrants (former farmers) are sparking violent hostility from locals because South Africa is a country facing domestic climate upheavals of its own.

This reporting project straddles the border of Zimbabwe and South Africa with input from voices in the two countries, Somalia, and Malawi.