Fisherman Mohammad Hanif is one of them. Due to the effects of climate change, hundreds of thousands of people are forced to leave their homes in Bangladesh every year.some internally displaced people are penalized for accelerated erosion, cyclones or the salinity of river waters.
Haniz, 62, was just ten months old when she and her family had to flee from her home as the Meghna River flowed in southern Bangladesh. Since that time lost his home three times due to a series of air disasters.
Experts attribute this and other factors, such as accelerated erosion or increased salinity, to global warming, particularly affecting Bangladesh and one of the most vulnerable countries on the planet to rising temperatures.
A losing battle against water
Meghna’s waters destroyed Hanif’s home three times, forced to stay near the mouth in the southern Bhola region due to his job as a fisherman, but the real setback came with the devastating Sidr Sidr in 2007, which killed almost 3,500 people. West coast of Bangladesh.
The fisherman was on his boat in the Meghna Estuary with eleven people, including his three brothers, when he received the warning that Sidr was coming.
Hanif could have abandoned his gear and fled to a nearby island, but he and the other fishermen risked their lives trying to save the net, to no avail.
“Fish was scarce in those years. I had to pay my debts and flee from my creditors to Dhaka a year and a half after the hurricane,” he told Efe from the capital’s Kalyanpur slum.
displaced in the capital
The slum is home to nearly 10,000 people, and UN special rapporteur for human rights protection in the face of climate change, Ian Fry, will visit on Wednesday as part of his first official overseas trip since his appointment.
“The people of Bangladesh continue to pay a huge economic and social price for the impact of climate change.. Research shows that the cost of loss and damage caused by the impact of climate change worldwide will increase between $290,000 million (EUR 290,000 million) and $580,000 million annually by 2030.
According to the non-profit development organization BRAC, which runs a development program in Kalyanpur, 21% of residents arrived in the capital after being displaced by climate-related natural disasters and from the southwestern river regions.
Ayesha Bibi, who works as a plastic waste collector, told Efe that she and her seven younger sisters came to the slum nearly 30 years ago, when their entire village collapsed due to erosion.
“We will never be able to go back to our town because it is gone, we don’t even know what happened to our neighbors.”
A particularly vulnerable country
Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.The number of people displaced by rising temperatures in the Asian country could even reach 13.3 million by 2050According to a World Bank report published in 2018.
According to the Geneva-based Center for Internal Displacement Monitoring (IDMC), between 2008 and 2021, an average of 1.1 million Bangladeshis left their homes each year due to natural disasters, but the vast majority were able to return, but it has been years like 2020. those particularly affected by a cyclone were 4.4 million.
Accelerating erosion in river areas is one of the major causes of these internal displacements.followed by increased salinity or rising sea levels in some areas.
“Scientific research, for climate-related reasons in the future, millions of people will lose their homes and move elsewhereSaleemul Huq of the International Development and Environment Institute told Efe.
Khondoker Mokaddam Hossain, a professor at Dhaka University’s Institute for Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, said the effects of climate change are exacerbating extreme weather events and “causing more and more natural disasters.”
“The frequency and intensity of natural disasters is increasing due to climate change.And as a result, many people had to leave their homes,” he said.
Hossain drew attention to the recent floods in the Sylhet region, which affected four million people in June.
“Record rainfall in the highlands of India has caused devastating flooding in the northeast this year. Now, between July and August, we are seeing the lowest rainfall in 42 years,” he said.
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