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             Photographs : Din Muhammad Shibly                                                     December 2021
             Text : Asif Tarafdar
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Centre, more than 700,000
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Bangladeshis have been
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  displaced on average by natural
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  disasters. The number spiked
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  during the years with
            SINKING                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               2009's Aila, which displaced
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  catastrophic cyclones, like
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  millions of people and killed
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  more than 200. But even in
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  relatively calmer years, there is
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  a rising drumbeat of
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  displacement as the sea-level
            DREAMS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                rises, and erosion, salinity
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  intrusion, crop failures, and
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  repeat inundation make life
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  along the coast untenable.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Overall, the number of
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Bangladeshis displaced by the
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  varied impacts of climate
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  change could reach 13.3
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  million by 2050, making it the
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  country's number-one driver of
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  internal migration, a World
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Bank report states.











             With rising sea levels,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 As the rising water level
             warmer temperatures and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 continues to devour homes in
             increasingly extreme                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Bangladesh's coastal areas,
             weather conditions, the                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 people have been forced to
             world is moving toward a                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                find floating solutions.  Year
             climate crisis. Climate                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 after year, devastating floods
             change poses an existential                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             break through the mud
             threat to human civilisation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            embankments, washing away
             and threatens to push                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   homes and crops. Thousands
             millions of species to the                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              of families across the region
             brink of extinction. The                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                desperately survive in
             rising sea level catalysed by                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           makeshift houses on boats
             climate change has                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      with limited supply of food
             displaced millions from                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 and water. However, they are
             their homes. However, the                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               well aware of the
             intensity of the climate                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                inevitability. Lack of land to
             displacement crisis across                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              cultivate and water to drink
             the globe pales in                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      will force them to leave their
             comparison to that in the                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               villages one day. Eventually,
             face of modern-day                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      they will have to flee to
             Bangladesh.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Dhaka's congested slums,
             According to the Internal                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               living precariously on menial
             Displacement Monitoring                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 work.




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