Â鶹Éç

Available for over a year

Malagasy and French journalist Gaëlle Borgia ignored concerns that it would be too dangerous to venture to the deep south of Madagascar to report on the situation there. The region has suffered decades of acute drought, impacting more than a million people who now face severe hunger. The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that it could become the first-ever famine caused by climate change. In her mini documentary, made for the press agency AFP in May 2021, Gaëlle Borgia met a family with so little food available, they had turned to eating wild roots and boiled scraps of leather in order to survive. The mini-doc, entitled Eating Shoes, has just picked up the top prize in the News Awards category at this year's One World Media Awards. Gaëlle Borgia told Focus on Africa's Karnie Sharp she was one of very few journalists who has travelled to the hard-to-access region to cover the story. Photo: A woman in Madagascar's drought-hit south, cuts leather scraps into strips. Credit: Gaëlle Borgia/AFP