Bangladesh climate victims search for new land

KUTUBDIAPARA, Bangladesh (AFP)


“Back then this area was barren and we were among the first to find this land,” says 50-year-old Alam, one of around 150 people who left the island in the 1980s.

Now his bamboo shack at Kutubdiapara — named after the island they left — is just one of thousands in the settlement located next to the beach resort of Cox’s Bazar.

Rough tides linked to rising sea levels have drowned 40 percent of the land on Kutubdia Island over the past half century, according to non-government organisation Coast Trust, which says the situation is getting worse each year.

The villagers who have fled the island are what scientists — including those from the United Nations Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — are calling Bangladesh’s first climate refugees.

AFP