Bangladesh's climate migration trail:Our village is still underwater "The first two or three days it was crazy. We don't have cars in our village, so when I saw a car I had to jump this way and that. And my head is full of a terrible buzzing sound." Haran Mondols, 53, was forced to move his extended family of 17 to Dhaka to look for work, after cyclone Aila drowned their village in southern Bangladesh in May.Haran used to be a wealthy man with five houses for his clan - all are now gone. Now they live in a group of huts on the perimeter of the international airport.
He clutches his head in despair as he talks about their situation: "The things we lost we couldn't make again even if we tried for 50 years. All I can think about is what we will do, what will happen to our children. I can't eat, I can't sleep because of thinking about all of this." Back in the village Haran's family were craft workers, weaving baskets. Now they shine shoes on the streets of Dhaka, a city of 15 million people. Because of the cost of living, even the children, who were at school before the cyclone came, have to work. Every morning 11-year-old Ruhi walks an hour into the centre of Dhaka. He misses school. "I have to work all day in the sun so I don't feel good. My father said I should do this work and when everything is okay back in the village I can go back and study. I would like to go back, to school. I want to be a teacher and have my own school." The family are desperate to return to their village, but like much of the area hit by Aila, it is still underwater. Haran's brother Kenna says the area is being abandoned. "It's not just us that is leaving, many people have left our village. It's just water there now. Even the earth our houses stood on has been washed away." |
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