A cow’s skull lies baking in the sun and nearby another dead cow rots, symbols of the desolation gripping northeastern Brazil during its worst drought in a century. Farmer Kerginaldo Pereira, 30, walks through the dust and cactuses in dismay. There are in all about 30 skeletons of cattle, donkeys and other farm animals in a sort of open-air cemetery set
aside in his settlement of Nova Canaa, in Ceara state, to avoid spread of disease. “Most are animals that died of thirst or hunger. Sadly, that’s the reality. So many animals have died in these five years of drought,” Pereira told AFP. The semiarid northeast of Brazil, known as the Sertao, is used to rain shortages but no one can remember a drought like this. There has been almost no rain since 2012 and the leafless, desiccated landscape has the appearance of having been in a vast fire. READ MORE
