\n<\/p>\n
They awake in the mornings to find another family has left. Half of one village, the entirety of the next have departed in the years since the water dried up \u2014 in search of jobs, of food, of any means of survival. Those who remain pick apart the abandoned homes and burn the bits for firewood.<\/p>\n
They speak of the lushness that once blessed this corner of southwestern Afghanistan. Now, it\u2019s parched as far as the eye can see. Boats sit on bone-dry banks of sand. What paltry water dribbles out from deep beneath the arid earth is salt-laced, cracking their hands and leaving streaks in their clothes.<\/p>\n
Several years of punishing drought has displaced entire swaths of Afghanistan, one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change, leaving millions of children malnourished and plunging already impoverished families into deeper desperation. And there is no relief in sight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In Noor Ali\u2019s village in Chakhansur district, near the border with Iran, four families remain out of the 40 who once lived there. Mr. Ali, a 42-year-old father of eight who used to grow cantaloupes and wheat, in addition to raising cattle, goats and sheep, is too poor to leave. His family is subsisting on a dwindling 440-pound bag of flour, bought with a loan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no options. I am waiting for God,\u201d he said. \u201cI am hoping for water to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The desperation in rural areas, where a majority of Afghanistan\u2019s population lives, has forced families into impossible cycles of debt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Rahmatullah Anwari, 30, who used to grow rain-dependent wheat, left his home in Badghis Province in the country\u2019s north for an encampment that has sprung up on the outskirts of Herat, the capital of an adjacent province. He borrowed money to feed his family of eight and to pay for his father\u2019s medical treatment. One of the villagers who had lent him money demanded his 8-year-old daughter in exchange for part of the loan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI have a hole in my heart when I think of them coming and taking my daughter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mohammed Khan Musazai, 40, had bought cattle on loan, but they were swept away in a flood \u2014 when rain comes, it comes erratically, and it has caused catastrophic flooding. The lenders took his land and also wanted his daughter, who was just 4 at the time.<\/p>\n