Recent heatwaves are a harbinger of Africa’s future

South Sudan’s children returned to school on April 2nd, not from a holiday but a heatwave in which thermometers reached 45°C. Teachers had been finding it just as difficult to concentrate as students, says Chol Guran Mayuot, who teaches in Juba, the capital. “You get up in the morning and you feel exhausted already.”This February was the world’s hottest ever recorded, the ninth record-breaking month in succession. Africa sweltered. Its southern cone was 4-5°C above the seasonal average. In some parts of west Africa the combination of heat and humidity made it feel hotter than 60°C. In recent weeks it has been the east’s turn to fry. The Horn of Africa “risks being uninhabitable” because of heatwaves, warned Ismail Omar Guelleh, the president of Djibouti.