In the southern part of Madagascar, a combination of drought, rising prices, and a decline in international aid is raising concerns about an unprecedented food crisis. Thousands of children are already suffering from malnutrition, and the arrival of El Niño—a climate pattern that causes warmer-than-average ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific—is worsening the outlook. In Ifotaka, a World Food Programme (WFP) center is preparing flour porridge for a dozen children who are weakened by malnutrition. The lean season, a period between harvests when food is scarce, has not yet begun, but rain is already scarce, and the predicted exceptionally intense El Niño phenomenon is causing fears of a rapid worsening of the situation. This arid region, the poorest in Madagascar, still bears the scars of the famine of 2021-2022, when around 30,000 people faced extreme food shortages near Ifotaka. At that time, some families consumed cactus or waste from tanneries. The WFP described the episode as the first famine attributed to climate change. Rising food needs are already alarming humanitarian organizations. According to the WFP, about 3.7 million people could face crisis-level food insecurity. In the southern region, 39 percent of children under five could suffer from acute malnutrition by April, nearly 270,000 children. The health situation is particularly concerning. At the Amboasary-Atsimo hospital, six malnourished children have died since the beginning of the year, compared to fifteen for the entire year of 2022, at the height of the previous crisis. Climate disruption is exacerbating an already existing vulnerability. According to Tania Goosens, director of the WFP in Madagascar, the country has recorded, in twenty years, 35 cyclones, eight floods, and five severe droughts—three times more climate-related hazards than during the previous two decades. In Manindra, farmers' observations are immediate. Despite the proximity of the Indian Ocean, rain is missing. "Unfortunately, there is no rain," testifies James Tsirimalaza, 46, who still waits for the precipitation necessary for his crops. International aid is under pressure. Drought is compounded by the reduction of humanitarian resources. The WFP states it is only reaching about half of the 720,000 people it had planned to assist. School canteens are also affected: 35,000 children no longer benefit from meals distributed in schools. Rising costs further complicate operations. The increase in oil and urea prices, linked to tensions in the Middle East, affects transport, water pumping, fertilizers, fishing, and food prices. Annual food inflation in Madagascar reached 10.4 percent in July, compared to 6.8 percent in January. At the same time, the reduction of some international funding reduces the capacity of health and humanitarian structures. At the Amboasary-Atsimo hospital, the logo of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), whose activities were dismantled in 2025, recalls this decline in support. Access to water is a decisive issue. For the inhabitants, irrigation could be a possible way out. Eva Razafindrazaka, 51, explains that she cannot water her field, which is too far from the communal water point. Beside her, her grandson is being treated for malnutrition. Solar pumps allow some farmers to bypass this difficulty, but their cost remains prohibitive for most. Manjomaro Andrianantenaina, 25, spent more than two million ariary, about 400 euros, to dig a well equipped with a solar pump. Such an investment remains inaccessible in a region where more than 90 percent of the population lived below the $2.15 per day poverty threshold in 2023, according to the World Bank. Without being able to rely on regular rains, the young farmer has adapted: "Before, I worried about the rain when it was hot. Now, I watch for the sun to pump water." However, in the southern region, where the next lean season is approaching, these solutions remain too rare to meet the scale of needs.