A new kind of refugee has arrived: Those forced from their home regions not by war or persecution, but by the climate. A Kenyan camp is bursting with the displaced, some of whom share their stories.
By EDMUND SANDERS, October 27, 2009 DADAAB, Kenya: For centuries, Adam Abdi Ibrahim’s ancestors herded cattle and goats in an unforgiving landscape in southern Somalia where few others were hearty enough to survive. This year, Ibrahim became the first in his clan to abandon his land then walked for a week to bring his family to this overcrowded refugee camp in Kenya. He is not fleeing warlords, Islamist insurgents or Somalia’s 18-year civil war. He is fleeing the weather. ”I give up,” said the father of five as he queued to register at the camp. After four years of drought and the death of his last 20 animals, Ibrahim, 28, said he had no plans to return. Africa is already home to one-third of the 42 million people worldwide uprooted by ethnic slaughter, despots and war. But experts say climate change is quietly driving Africa’s displacement crisis to new heights. Ibrahim is one of an estimated 10 million people worldwide who have been driven out of their homes by rising seas, failing rain, desertification or other climate-driven factors. Norman Myers, an Oxford University professor and one of the first scholars to draw attention to the problem, estimated there would be more than 25 million climate refugees by 2050, replacing war and persecution as the main cause of global displacement. Africa would be heaviest hit because so many people’s livelihoods depended on farming and livestock. …
Fleeing drought in the Horn of Africa
