The Indian Ocean island nation's worst drought in 40 years has left hundreds of thousands of people fighting for survival as the crisis gets more dire by the day.

Famine is devastating the south of Madagascar, the first country in the world to experience such conditions due to climate change, according to the UN. The current situation -- brought on by years of persistent drought -- prompted World Food Programme executive director David Beasley, who recently visited the country, to say it was akin to "something you see in a horror movie."

Madagascan police this week arrested six people, including a foreign national, on suspicion of plotting to kill the president, after months of investigation, officials said on Thursday.

Several have been arrested over an assassination plot against President Andry Rajoelina, Madagascar prosecutors have said.

Communities in Madagascar are on the verge of starvation, with women and children walking for hours to reach food after the worst drought in four decades devastated the south of the island, the World Food Programme said.

While in Nigeria, we think of shaving a widow's head as a strange funeral tradition, but these four traditions make that pale into nothing.

Several years of drought and other factors have left millions in southern Madagascar hungry, with the World Food Programme warning that famine is looming.

It's one of the most overlooked disasters in the world. In Madagascar, 1.5 million people are suffering from a serious food crisis and need emergency assistance. Several dozen people have already died of hunger. An unprecedented drought, which hit the south of the island in recent years and destroyed almost all of the crops, is mostly to blame. As the UN World Food Programme asks for emergency aid of €62.45 million, our correspondent Gaëlle Borgia travelled to Anosy, the region hardest hit by the crisis.

Three consecutive years of drought and a sharp recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic will leave a third of the population in Southern Madagascar struggling to put food on the table. The U.N. World Food Programme says about 1.4 million people in the region will need food aid this year.

In the drought-ravaged south of Madagascar, people are eating white clay mixed with tamarind to cope with famine. Half of the population in the southern region of the Indian Ocean island -- 1.5 million people -- is currently in need of emergency food aid, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Around 31 million euros ($37.6 million) are urgently needed to feed the hungry.

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For women in Madagascar, having their monthly period is more than just an inconvenience. Having access to toilets, clean water or even disposable sanitary protection is a luxury out of reach to most of them. Our reporters went to investigate on the island, where due to a lack of access to basic infrastructure and necessities – but also because of beliefs, taboos and humiliation – menstrual hygiene is a battle for millions of women, with serious consequences for their empowerment, education and health.