Heartbreaking Video Shows Fallen Lambs as Drought Endures in Namaqualand, South Africa

Just over three months ago, Hannes van den Heever filmed a video of the drought in the Namakwaland (Namaqualand) Bushmanland area. Nothing has changed since then. It’s just got worse. There has been no rain. Yesterday he filmed a new video… showing the devastation – the sick, dying and dead animals.

There is nothing left… and not enough veld for the animals to eat. The condition of those who survive another day is dire. Hannes shows one, barely able to stand… its fallen “maaitjies” (friends) lying nearby. They’re dying from hunger.

Hannes is on a mission for the people of South Africa to see what the reality is like for his family and friends in the Namakwaland and Boesmanland district in the Northern Cape of South Africa. The region is waiting, desperately, for the rain.

Hannes thanks those who care, who’ve tried to help; and says he’s aware that it’s a problem to donate food when the transport costs can reach up to R30,000 to get a donation of food to them.

In the video, filmed on his parents’ farm, Hannes – who lives nearby in Aggeneys – asks  for people to please pray with them for rain.

“Bid vir ons, bid vir reen” (pray for us, pray for rain), he says.

Watch Drought Footage from Namaqualand, South Africa

SAPeople asked Hannes if there’s anyway that people can help. He said: “I think it would be better to pay any money into the account of the KLK (landbou korporasie) and then my father can collect the mielies or lucern from KLK – email admin@klk.co.za. If anyone wants to donate, they can contact my father on 0832882716 (Sakkie). He can give more info. We are expecting rain, but up to now, we had nothing.”

According to Red Meat Producers’ Organisation vice-president James Faber, the long drought in the Northern Cape is no longer just an “agricultural disaster”… it is now a “socio-economic catastrophe”.