For Bangladesh Climate Migrants, Pandemic Job Cuts Fuel 'Multiple Crises'

"Bangladesh is one of the world's largest exporters of labour, but thousands have been left without work as the pandemic slows economies around the world"

"DHAKA - Five years ago, Belal Hossain left his home in the low-lying region of Garuikhali, near the coastal mangroves of southern Bangladesh, to work as a builder in a construction company more than 2,000 miles (3,219 km) away in Malaysia.

The 29-year-old said leaving his village in the Sundarbans - a fragile ecosystem already being affected by climate change impacts, from soil salinity to higher seas and river erosion - was the only way he could feed his family of five.

But the company he worked for in Malaysia suffered losses due to COVID-19 and was forced to make cuts. Hossain lost his job and returned home in March this year.

'Soon after I came back, we were hit by Cyclone Yaas and my family's farmland got devoured due to the rising water,' he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation."

Naimul Karim reports for Thomson Reuters Foundation October 2, 2021.

Source: Thomson Reuters Fdn., 10/04/2021