diff --git a/makefile b/makefile
index 68533be362204ea476bc49efcb1d05b587b98e14..e13d7abc2b8673dbca425ae7c473199135db8f17 100644
--- a/makefile
+++ b/makefile
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ ifneq (0, $(CPPUNIT_EXISTS))
 $(error You need cppunit installed)
 endif
 
-LIBXML2_EXISTS = $(shell $(CXX) -o /dev/null -lxml2 -xc++ - <<< $$'\#include <libxml/xmlreader.h>\nint main() {\nreturn 0;\n}'; echo $$?)
+LIBXML2_EXISTS = $(shell $(CXX) -o /dev/null -I/usr/include/libxml2/ -lxml2 -xc++ - <<< $$'\#include <libxml/xmlreader.h>\nint main() {\nreturn 0;\n}'; echo $$?)
 ifneq (0, $(LIBXML2_EXISTS))
 $(error You need libxml2 installed)
 endif