2008 saw at least 700,000 new climate refugees in Africa
African leaders recognised climate change as a major cause of human displacement during a two-day summit on the plight of the continent’s refugees which closed Friday in Kampala. Several African nations adopted a document on the rights of the continent’s 17 million internally-displaced persons (IDP), refugees and returnees. “The important thing about this convention is that it applies to conflict and climate as causes of displacement,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told reporters shortly after the signing. “I am confident about the awareness of how seriously African countries will be affected by climate change,” he said. In 2008, there were 104 recognised natural disasters in Africa and 99 percent were climate related, John Holmes, United Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, said at the Kampala Summit. According to Holmes, a recorded 700 000 people on the continent were displaced by climate events in 2008, but he said he suspects the real number is much higher. … “What we fear is, what the scientists predict, is that this is simply going to get worse,” he added. … Tarsis Kabwegyere, Ugandan minister for Refugees and Disaster Preparedness, said that people displaced by climate events were previously given less consideration. “In Uganda it is already a serious matter. We are having very strange winds, landslides in areas where we didn’t have them in my own lifetime. And now we are more concerned with dealing with that aspect of displacement,” he said. …
