About 4.4 million people were internally displaced in Bangladesh last year largely due to natural disasters like cyclonic storms and monsoon floods. According to the Global Report on Internal Displacement 2021, the number of people displaced in Bangladesh in the year was third-highest among global internal displacements after China and the Philippines. Loss of housing and livelihood each year displaced millions of people and triggered rural-urban migration.
The report said cyclone Amphan which hit in May last year triggered around 2.5 million new displacements in Bangladesh, mostly in the form of pre-emptive evacuations. Besides, the monsoon triggered around 1.9 million displacements nationwide. The report mentions the scarcity of data on how long people remain displaced, makes it difficult to fully understand the scale and nature of protracted displacement triggered by disasters and climate change impacts.
According to the report, South Asia accounted for almost a third of the world’s new disaster displacements in 2020. Cyclone Amphan triggered nearly five million evacuations across Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Bhutan in May, making it the largest disaster displacement event of the year globally. Monsoon rains and floods affected the whole region from June onwards and particularly Bangladesh. Around 3.2 million people across the region were living in internal displacement as a result of disasters last year.
Globally, conflicts and disasters triggered 40.5 million internal displacements across 149 countries and territories last year. Disasters triggered more than three-quarters of the new displacements recorded worldwide. Over 98 per cent were the result of weather-related hazards such as storms and floods. The floods coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, disrupting the operation of local markets, eroding people’s livelihoods and economic resilience, and making their impact more severe. Despite these challenges, there were also some positive developments in humanitarian response, such as the use of anticipatory action forecasting to allocate assistance to affected areas quickly. Bangladesh is not responsible for climate change, but we bear the brunt of climate-induced disasters. Successive governments failed to solve the problems due to corruption and mismanagement.
