When the well runs dry

[littlemissmartypants]

When the well runs dry

As the water evaporates in their overheated world, crop farmers and livestock herders in Chad are spilling blood instead.

The Continent
Nov 26, 2025

Mahamat Saleh in N’Djamena

At least 26 people were injured last week when a dispute about a well turned violent in Goskoro, a rural community north of Mao in western Chad. This confrontation was just the latest in a growing wave of deadly conflicts between farmers and herders over such water points, which serve as critical lifelines for both communities. Less than two weeks earlier, another fight over a well in a neighbouring province left about 30 people dead.

The violence has provoked criticism of the government. Senator Albert Pahimi Padacké accused authorities of ignoring repeated warnings, arguing the government “sees nothing and says nothing, showing … blindness in the face of the people’s suffering.

Further south, fighting between farming and herding communities earlier this month in Babalao killed four people and displaced several others who were forced to flee to nearby villages. Senior provincial officials travelled to the affected area shortly afterwards to reinforce security and encourage residents to return.

That same day, a separate clash was reported in Ngoura, southern Chad, which left 33 people dead. That confrontation, also sparked by competing claims to an old well, left dozens of people injured. Some of them were taken to hospitals in the capital, N’Djamena.
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https://continent.substack.com/p/when-the-well-runs-dry

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[NNadir]

1. Recently I logged into a Cornell Lecture by an academic discussing conflict, peace, and the environment.

Thanks for bringing this issue of peace and environmental degradation up. As it happens, just this week, I watched a presentation on the topic.

It was put on by the Reppy Institute at Cornell; I'm on their mailing list.

The event is described here: The Production of Climate Mobility Futures: Comparative Insights from National Security Strategies

About this Event

Virtual Event
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Register for the virtual talk here: https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/9scDvJ8BTNqY2h1Z4_o2Vg.

Climate change deteriorates habitability. How will people respond who inhabit the affected spaces? (Im-)Mobility is one of the most prominently debated behavioral responses. Importantly, there is little scientific support for the claim that environmental deterioration by itself results in international mass migration. There is, however, good evidence that migrants are vulnerable to climate change impacts during their journeys. This paper explores the extent to which the notion of future, inevitable large-scale, climate-driven, South-North migration prevails in official positions – despite these nuanced findings. To this end, the paper takes stock of how national governments frame these futures in their national security strategies. The paper discusses framing differences between countries that typically receive migrants and those that are typically countries of origin. Governments, particularly from the Global North, frame migration often as an inevitable function of climate change. They do refer to migrants not as victims of this breakdown of sustainability or as protagonists of adaptation – but as the drivers of breakdown of peace in destination countries. In closing, the paper points to framings that are more aligned with the state of scientific research and that are more conducive to a sustainable, peaceful response to potential climate-related displacements. More generally, the observed framing of climate-related mobility is a textbook case for counterproductive framings of climate-related insecurities. If not well aligned with research, such framings risk justifying unsustainable policies that prioritize reactive means and the securitization of national space over ambitious climate policies that aim for long-term human security and sustainability.

About the speaker

Dr. Anselm Vogler is a Non-Resident Fellow at IFSH since February 2024. Until recently, he was Postdoctoral Researcher at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA and, prior to that, at the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2024 he successfully defended his dissertation on climate security policies. From April 2020 until January 2024, he was research associate at IFSH and worked in the DFG cluster of excellency Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS) at University Hamburg. Anselm Vogler studied political science in Dresden and New York. He was awarded an International Recognition for his dissertation by the Hans Günter Brauch foundation as well as the Viktor Klemperer Medal for distinguished success during studies and an award at the Beijing-Humboldt Forum.

I don't do well with Social Science lectures, and during the lecture, I was interrupted a few times by people coming into my office to ask me stuff, so I can't say that I can discuss the talk in detail, but what I did learn is that there is a entire discipline devoted to the study of peace, violence, and the collapse of the planetary environment. It is apparently not new, but it's new to me. I put some papers referenced in the talk on my reading list.
Whether I'll actually collect and read them is another question.

I can say that there was a considerable part of the talk devoted to the differences in climate impact on the global south vs. the global north.

Thanks again.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Great share. Very thankful for your presence here, NN. 🙏