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Dhaka in building boom to accommodate climate migrants

by AlertNet correspondent | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Friday, 12 February 2010 17:12 GMT

By Syful Islam

Syful Islam is a senior reporter with The New Nation newspaper in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) - A building boom in rickety new huts is underway in Korail slum, the biggest temporary residence of landless people in Bangladesh's capital.

A growing flood of landless poor, many displaced by climate-related problems, are moving into the canal-side slum, which lies adjacent to Gulshan, one of Dhaka's poshest areas.

Everywhere, people are busy building new makeshift rooms Â? in some cases multi-story shanties of bamboo and wood Â? to accommodate the arrivals.

Bangladeshi researchers estimate that about half a million people each year are pouring to the capital city after losing their homes and livelihoods to problems linked to climate change, including land erosion, worsening storms and sea level rise.

At present around 10,000 people live crammed into each square kilometer in Dhaka, where finding open land has become very difficult. The city, built for a million people in the 1960s, now accommodates more than 12 million and is one of the most densely populated on earth.

Bangladesh is ranked by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of the countries most at risk from climate change. Models suggest the low-lying nation of 156 million people could lose 17 percent of its land to rising seas, displacing 15 million people by 2050.

FEW RESOURCES TO SPARE

Providing for the needs of ever-increasing numbers of climate migrants is proving difficult in a country with few resources to help them.

Dhaka already suffers widespread poverty and unemployment, and offers limited opportunities for new migrants. The country has no social safety net to assist those who cannot find work for themselves, and competition for jobs is increasing with each new arrival.

Most of the people living in Korail are beggars, day labourers, boatman, rickshaw pullers or roadside hawkers, said Abul Miah, 40, who lives with his family of four in a 10-foot by 10-foot hut.

"I could not afford schooling of my children, so they are working in garment factory and roadside shop to help me," he said of his adult son and younger daughter.

Osman Mia, 70, formerly of Bangladesh's southern Borguna district, became landless when the Payra River in southern Bangladesh claimed his property. He now earns a living by pulling a rickshaw in Dhaka's bustling streets.

The Korail slum, with its bamboo and tin shacks, has no permanent toilet facilities, so residents construct hanging toilets over the adjacent canal, polluting its water.

MUD STOVES, NO WATER

The slum also has no piped water from the Dhaka Water Supply Authority. In exchange for monthly payments, some musclemen supply water through illegal pipelines in exchange of monthly payments.

Inhabitants cook on stoves made of mud, burning huge amounts of wood and bamboo since there is no gas supply in the slum, which lies just across the canal from the homes of some of Dhaka's richest families.

Hasen Molla, 60, is one of the canal's boatmen. He lost his village home in Chaulakathi, in Bangladesh's Barishal district after the Kochar River claimed his familyÂ?s land.

"My family moved to my granny's house as we lost all the properties to river erosion. Since then two of my brothers are living there and I left for Dhaka to find my bread and butter," he said.

Nearly a third of his $65 a month income goes to rent.

"My son and daughters are also working, as I can't bear all the expenses. There is no scope for anyone here to live without work, no matter if you are adult or not," he said.

For those without work, the outlook is particularly bleak.

Rohiton Nesa, 60, who has no children and whose husband left her, now begs in the street and at bus stops to pay for food and a place to live. She lost her family home and land in Noakhali district to erosion from the Hatiya river, she said.

The situation is the same in Dhaka's Mogbazar slum, home to about 10,000 climate migrants living in 1,200 shanties.

Amiron, 65, who like many Bangladeshis goes by one name, lives with her two sons, daughter-in-laws and grandchildren in an 80-square-foot room made of plastic sheets and bamboo. The room has a wooden platform where her children sleep, while she and the grandchildren sleep nearby on the floor.

Mogbazar has some piped-in water. But Amiron feels shy to shower in an open-air bathroom the Dhaka City Corporation has built.

"It's very tough for women to bath under the open sky," she said.

Her daughter-in-law Monwara, 22, who lost her own parents to flooding, said starting over in Dhaka's slums is a huge challenge for families who have lost everything and can afford nothing better than a basic hut.

"We are very poor. We lost all the things to the river. I lost my parents, too," she said. "We have no way to find a better place as buying food twice a day became a big challenge for us."

The slum presents other perils as well. Devastating fires regularly break out among the bamboo and wood structures. Hanif Mia, 75, was narrowly saved by his daughter last December when a blaze raged through his slum area, burning nearly all of the huts.

"My leg was broken in mid-November. I had no capacity to move. God saved me from burning as my daughter took me out," he remembered.

Now, "we built this hut again taking loan at high rate of interest from private lenders. I don't know if I will be able to repay the loan," he said.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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