Nadine Wondje, a native of Manoka, an island off the coast of Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, fears the sea will soon “swallow” her village. “Those poles and the other stakes you see is what remains of our homes that were once located there,” she told IRIN, pointing out to sea. “We have been displaced many times, each time further and further inland.”
Wondje doesn’t know where her family will go the next time a storm destroys her house, but coastal erosion and regional flooding have forced many away already.
Tens of thousands of people in Cameroon are not only being driven from their homes and communities due to deadly attacks by Boko Haram, but also, increasingly, because of extreme weather events, including drought and monsoon rains.
At least 120 villages have been destroyed since 2012 by flooding, along with thousands of hectares of farmland, according to Cameroon’s Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization.
For the complete article, please see IRIN News Africa.
Tensions in the South China Sea increased last April when a Chinese coast guard ship sank a Vietnamese fishing boat near the Paracel Islands—a fiercely disputed territory in the South China Sea. Disputes over island territories in the region have endured for decades, with China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei all making overlapping territorial claims. The region is rich in natural resources and biodiversity, holding vast fish stocks and an estimated 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 cubic feet of natural gas.
Without a coordinated strategy to tackle flooding disasters beyond the traditional infrastructural measures and river water sharing agreements, South Asia’s woes will continue in the future.
With Argentina's ‘yes’, the Escazú Agreement is one step away from coming into force. What’s its status in each country?
As political and public narratives on COVID-19 shift towards the need to ‘build back better’, the pandemic continues to take a heavy toll for many. A new report by the Climate Security Expert Network (CSEN) shows how COVID-19 can exacerbate climate-related security risks.