Lake Chad was once an oasis in the Sahel, the massive arid bands that separates the Sahara from the southern savanna. In the 1970s the lake began receding and then a plague sickened vital herds of livestock. By the 1990s, the lake had shrunk by 95% and inhabitants began starving.
In 2015, Book Haram arrived and began forcing island-villages into their service. The Chadian military then forced 55,000 islanders to relocate to the inhospitable mainland and told them that relief agencies would come to provide aid. The result was a humanitarian disaster where climate change, armed conflict, disease, poverty, corruption and lack of a functional government have imperiled the displaced. With the refugee communities being inaccessible and scattered, the problem is extremely difficult for relief agencies to address.
On assignment for The New Yorker, Paolo Pellegrin accompanied two UNICEF workers as they traveled the Lake Chad region and photographed the displaced in habitants.

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