CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT IN THE NEWS
As has been our advocacy message about climate displacement risks, refugees are amongst the most vulnerable of the frontline communities to climate shocks and risks, spending year after year exposed to extreme rains and cyclones in Bangladesh with no access to storm shelters. The Covid-19 pandemic response proves no different.
Kalle Kortelainen/UNSPLASH
Aid workers and community leaders interviewed say Rohingya refugee fears of being separated from their families and held in isolation are hampering testing efforts in the crowded Cox’s Bazar refugee complex in Bangladesh. Only one death has been recorded, fears are that the novel Coronavirus may be spreading faster than the 29 confirmed cases as of mid-May. Although 860,000 refugees live in the camp, only 339 tests have been conducted, and one community organizer noted that camp hospitals are empty but makeshift medical shops are busy, where it is presumed refugees are going for self-treatment. IOM noted clinic visits dropped by 50% in March. Yale University researchers, who interviewed hundreds of refugees in April, found about a quarter of interviewees reported at least one Coronavirus symptom.
The fear is clearly connected to Bangladeshi restrictions on movement as well as internet and mobile communications, which we indicated in an earlier SPOTLIGHT news report, infringe on refugee rights to health and freedom of movement. (Reuters)
Around 390 refugee survivors were rescued on April 16 from a trafficking boat intended for Malaysia, while attempting to flee desperate conditions in the world’s largest refugee complex Cox’s Bazar. The boat is among many others still at sea, which had previously reached Malaysia but was denied permission to disembark with authorities citing the coronavirus lockdown. The refugees were forced back to sea where 70 people were reported to have died, and ultimately to Cox’s Bazar where they were quarantined for two weeks and received medical treatment due to the abysmal conditions on board. Three other boats remain at sea with about 700 Rohingya refugees onboard in similar terrible conditions, which the UN warns could present a “human tragedy of terrible proportions” if no actions are taken. Presumably, refugees are leaving Cox’s Bazar as rumors circulate of coronavirus spread and as Bangladesh moves to fence the camp and restrict communications. (Telegraph UK)
Analysis
The tragedy unfolding in the Bay of Bengal and Cox’s Bazar impacting hundreds of Rohingya who have already fled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar is emblematic of the further erosion of humanitarian protections imposed by new COVID-19 restrictions. If Bangladesh had refused return of the boat and Malaysia had forced those refugees back to their countries where they were reasonably expected to face persecution, torture or other cruel and degrading treatment, it would have been tantamount to refoulement. The principle of non-refoulement always applies under international law and under no circumstances is it ever permissible to forcibly return an asylum seeker. Furthermore, for the refugees in Cox’s Bazar, the right to health, a fundamental human right enshrined in human rights, humanitarian and refugee law, is impeded because refugees are being denied access to life-saving health information by the Bangladeshi government’s decision to restrict Internet communications access, including their freedom of movement, via recent policies to fence the refugee complex in an effort to contain the novel coronavirus.
About 10 million of the world’s 70 million refugees live in crowded camps and informal settlements. Almost no refugees living in these camps have been tested for the virus, and testing, in short supply in New York, is non-existent in the global south, where ventilators, gloves and masks are scant. A review by Norwegian Refugee Council of 30 countries found virtually no testing before people became sick - many in cramped and abysmal quarters making social distancing and frequent hand-washing near impossible. Refugees have tested positive in Italy, Germany, Iran, Australia and Greece, where 150 people living in a quarantined hotel for asylum-seekers had contracted the virus. In Syria’s war-ravaged Idlib province, where 200 tests have been carried out but no cases yet exist, only one small health facility is ready to treat, but elsewhere, where cases have appeared, 350 health facilities have been bombed, over 900 medical staff have been killed and countless more have fled. In Cox’s Bazaar, the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, aid workers are racing to build isolation facilities, while in Kenya’s two largest refugee camps, Kakuma and Dadaab, where refugees have lived for decades in exile, there are no tests, no intensive care units and no ventilators, and fears are that the worst is yet to come. (LA Times)
As countries shut their borders and refugee resettlement operations grind to a halt, refugees in camps and urban settlements grow ever more vulnerable to the Coronavirus, where social distancing seems largely a privilege. Cox’s Bazaar - the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh - has twice the density of New York City, the current pandemic epicenter. Overcrowded settlements exemplify conflict, climate and contagion’s interconnectedness - all leading reasons for flight. The response to Covid-19 has highlighted the challenges of response in the face of limited resources - prompting questions of whether to treat the elderly over the young or the current workforce? These same ethical questions easily translate to groups defined by immigration status and borders as well, and while the virus has everything to do with mobility, it is migration that has been demonized. And all the while, it is migrants all over the world who have made significant contributions as frontline and essential workers in the medical fields, food and health services that keep the pandemic response moving along. (Newsroom)
High in the Himalayas in a village called Dhye, an exodus of migrants has begun, forced by dwindling crops, the closed school, and essentially, life made impossible by climate change. Millions of South Asians are at risk as glacial melt has accelerated and with it, made land barren and remapped the Himalayan region, forcing mountain dwellers to build life anew at lower altitudes. One of the most comprehensive studies on mountain warming last year revealed that even if the most ambitious climate change targets were met, at least one-third of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2100, and warnings are that rising temperatures could spread malaria and dengue to new areas of the region, where mosquitoes have already started to appear in the highlands. Nepal is considered ground zero for the impacts of climate change and while the number of impacted migrants are unknown, local officials estimate it to be in the thousands with officials planning to track the impacts of rising temperatures for the first time in an upcoming census. The climate change migrants who have already left face numerous challenges in resettlement, where new residents have no legal right to land. (NY Times)
Already farmers and herders across Kenya are reporting the large swathes in an infestation which first arrived last June and wreaked havoc across eight countries. Scientists say they never left and will only increase this year due to higher than average rainfall. East Africa, already a food insecure region for 20 million people, now faces additional challenges made worse by conflict, climate shocks and the expected rise in Covid-19 cases, and experts fear that up to 100% of farmers’ budding crops could be destroyed. Efforts to mitigate losses are underway but Covid-19 poses new challenges with country lockdowns and supply chain disruptions in pesticide shipments. Already, Somalia is three weeks behind in locust control pesticides due to Covid-19. If control activities fail, up to an additional 5 million could be food insecure in East Africa by June. (Quartz Africa)
Bangladesh is stepping up initiatives to protect 4,409 climate displaced people in Cox’s Bazaar refugee settlement, which the government is dubbing the largest refugee project in the world. A further 55 multi-storied buildings will be constructed across the country for ‘climate refugees’ in a quest to cut poverty, provide land, housing, and broad livelihood and development assistance to populations affected by natural disasters such as cyclones, floods and river erosion. (New Age Bangladesh)
Analysis:
Of course, Bangladeshi citizens internally displaced by climate change are classified as internally displaced persons even if for environmental grounds such as climate change.
Much of the existing climate migration modeling grabs our attention with its massive numbers of looming large-scale displacements, but can it also miss the details of the fuller picture, not just in terms of numbers, but also of the exact shape and form this displacement might take since it lacks scientific certainty, ultimately pushing policymakers, in the wrong direction?
For example, many experts expect the displacement to be internal and happen slowly over time, and usually not very far. Some experts feel that assigning an expected number helps to galvanize political will while others contend apocalyptic messaging fans the flames of existing nationalism and xenophobia spreading around the world.
Francois Gemenne, a leading expert in this topic, contends that presenting the situation as something unmanageable fuels prejudices and invites government surveillance.” (Rolling Stone)
Analysis:
It should be noted that while most climate migration or climate displacement may be internal, multiple displacements or states’ continuous inabilities to meet the needs of displaced populations could bring about situations which force individuals to seek assistance and protection across borders.
Furthermore, an increasing area of concern in some urban cities like the Miami neighborhoods of Little Haiti and Liberty City is “climate gentrification” as one Harvard study put it, which explores whether natural disasters can make lower-income inland neighborhoods more attractive to wealthier migrants who seek to offset their risks to climate change by buying up real estate that risks “displacing” local residents in the process.
Just as the coronavirus wreaks panic across the globe, the UN’s weather body, The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) report last week warned of the increased risk of dengue fever to about half of the world’s population due to rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, making it easier for the Aedes mosquito species to transmit the virus. Dengue is now the fastest spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world, increasing from only 9 countries in the world in the 1970’s to 128 countries that strikes 96 million people each year.
Last week we shared the report’s findings that global hunger was on the rise as well as climate displacement, which internally displaced more than 6.7 million people last year. (The Pioneer)
