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As part of the BBC's A Richer World season, Rustam Qobil visits a desert where people have lost their sea, health and loved ones to a man-made disaster. \\nHe meets 86 year-old Khojabay who lives in Kazakhstan in the middle of a vast toxic desert made of mud, dust and pesticides \\u2013 once The Aral Sea. 40 years ago his village was a seaside fishing port surrounded by freshwater lakes and barley fields, and he could catch up to 400 kilos of fish in one go. \\nHowever, 26,000 square miles of sea is now called Aralkum or \\u2018The Aral Sands\\u2019 locally. When the Soviets started building dozens of dams and canals in the 1960s they deprived the Aral Sea of its two main tributaries and the sea started shrinking. \\nRustam Qobil travels to \\u2018The Aral Sands\\u2019 and hears from the people whose lives and families have been affected.