By Nick Allen
May 14 (Bloomberg) — More than one billion people may be forced from their homes between now and 2050 in a global migration crisis dwarfing the effects of the Second World War, according to a report by the relief and development agency Christian Aid.
By Nick Allen
May 14 (Bloomberg) — More than one billion people may be forced from their homes between now and 2050 in a global migration crisis dwarfing the effects of the Second World War, according to a report by the relief and development agency Christian Aid.
Climate change, natural disasters, large-scale development projects and armed conflicts are leading to the world's biggest ever movement of people, mostly in poor countries, the agency said.
“We believe that forced migration is now the most urgent threat facing poor people in the developing world,'' said John Davison, the report's lead author. “We hear a lot about people trying to come to Europe and other rich countries but the real crisis is developing a long way away and remains largely unreported.''
Christian Aid was set up by churches in the U.K. and Ireland in 1945 and works in some of the world's poorest nations. It says climate change will lead to mass migration, fuelling existing conflicts and generating new ones, making “a world of many more Darfurs the increasingly likely nightmare scenario.''
Its report highlighted the situation in three countries, Colombia, Burma and Mali. In Colombia the effects of internal conflict and land grabbing meant 3.7 million people, or 8.5 percent of the population, have already fled their homes in the last 20 years, the report said.
Burma has for almost 60 years been caught up in the world's longest running civil war and hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Thailand with another half a million internally displaced, the report said. The homes of many more are now under threat from dam projects, it said.
Mali Rainfall
Rainfall in Mali has lessened dramatically over the last 30 years and become much more erratic, according to the report. About 70 percent of Mali's people live in rural areas but, with harvests failing, many are moving into cities, particularly the capital Bamako.
“There were 600,000 people in Bamako 20 years ago and now there are about two million,'' said Ibrahim Togola, who set up the Mali Folke Centre in 2000 to help Malians adapt to climate change. “This causes insecurity, the spread of HIV and eventually emigration to Europe.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Allen in London at nallen14@bloomberg.net .