[P]eople who live in the coastal areas of Bangladesh are always at risk of river erosion, cyclones, floods and other natural disasters. Displaced from their homes, they are forced to leave smaller villages and find refuge in the cities. Motijhorna & Akbor Shah are such places in the city of Chittagong where refugees flock from islands that are most affected by climate change, like Vhola, Noyakhai, Hatia and Shandip. Motijhorna & Akbor Shah has an extremely low cost of accommodation but because most refugees live under the hills, landslides are a common danger.
Every year in the rainy season people are dying because of landslide. Last year in Motijhorna 17 people including man, women & child have died in the landslide. This year in Bangladesh about 111 people has died with landslide in various places. Though they are counting times for death under those hills but they are not agreed to displace because other part of the city is too expensive. “We have to die” says 35-year-old Rahima, a garment worker and refugee. “Here we are dying for landslide but in our village we were dying for poverty or natural disaster. It is better to die in a second by a landslide, rather than suffer from poverty or natural disaster.” (Originally published in Dispatches Internationalwww.DiNews.org)