A life-or-death search for water in drought-parched Somalia – in pictures.
Three years of waiting for rain that never arrived have hit centuries-old traditions of nomadic farming in Somalia, a country where seven in 10 people rely on animals or crops for their livelihoods.
Pastoralists have been forced to travel far from their homes in a constant, poorly rewarded, search for water.
In Somaliland, in the country’s north-west, once green pastures have been scorched to dust by the ongoing drought The need to find clean water becomes more acute by the day.
People dig and dig through dusty layers of dry earth in the hope of reaching a few inches of precious fluid below.
The country is close to famine, with 6.2 million people – more than half the population – in need of aid, and 1.4 million children acutely malnourished The Biyagadud dam stores run-off water, providing vital resources to about 15,000 families and their animals.
The project was initiated by the Somali government together with the United Nations Development Programme to improve resilience in a country highly vulnerable to climate change Ismail began his journey with 150 goats.
Only the small, hardy herd seen here remains; the remainder perished due to lack of water.
The Gu rains, which normally fall between April and June, are beginning to make an impact, albeit small, in parts of the country.
But the land is so parched that rainfall can cause its own problems, as indicated by reports of flash floods in the south-east