Millions at risk of climate displacement in Mideast

Millions at risk of climate displacement in Mideast

CAIRO: Little rainfall, aggressive heatwaves and worsening drought make the Middle East the most water-stressed region in the world, with climate change threatening to displace millions of people. Hussein Abu Saddam, head of the farmers’ syndicate in Egypt which is hosting the COP27 global climate summit in November, told AFP he is already witness to a climate-induced exodus from the countryside.

Agriculture in Egypt – “one of the most arid countries in the world” – has grown even less profitable because of new climate-linked hazards such as “the appearance of new parasites”, he said. “Young people from rural areas are migrating abroad or to big cities to work in industry.” According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), “roughly 90 percent of refugees come from countries that are the most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change”.

“If people can’t farm, if people can’t work, if people can’t find food, they have few alternatives to displacement,” Amy Pope, deputy director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told AFP. In 2021, natural disasters forced “nearly three million people” to leave their homes in Africa and the Middle East, she said. “And the situation is only going to get