Realities of leaving. Why people are moving out of Zambia's troubled South

The nature and causes of migration in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa are still poorly understood. University of Bath researchers surveyed two neighbouring yet contrasting areas of southern Zambia to track where people were moving, and why. Internal migration tends to be at least in part a response to population overload and to land hunger arising from drought and other environmental damage. Unregulated migration of rural people to more fertile and higher rainfall rural areas further north was found to be a dominant pattern, more common than regulated movement from one rural area to another or from rural to urban areas. Contrary to received wisdom, social conflicts and problems are major causes of these movements.