A report by Save the Children states that natural disasters caused by climate change in recent years have forced more than 100,000 people in Burundi to be left homeless.
The report says climate change is a shocking phenomenon and not a conflict that has been a major factor in causing many to flee their homeland to the landlocked and East African nation, whose population is also based in rural areas.
Save the Children says more than 84 percent of the homeless people in Burundi are due to natural disasters rather than conflict, and much of it is due to the overflow of Lake Tanganyika, the second-largest in Africa.
The case is said to affect children the most, with Save the Children estimating 7,200 of the victims or 7 percent of children under one year of age. Older children are unable to attend classes, living in a difficult environment to get one meal a day. Arielle, 17, whose home was flooded in the middle of the night after the floodwaters receded, told Save the Children that she was struggling to make ends meet at least one euro a day working as a bricklayer.
He says he eats every day, although there are some days he misses even getting one meal. Farmers who are currently homeless told the agency that flood disasters have increased in recent days. Marie, a mother of three, was quoted by Save the Children as saying: "The flood situation has worsened than in the past. This time the floods are increasing and not decreasing. I fear my children will lose their lives to starvation."
The international community seems to have forgotten Burundi
Maggie Korde, a resident representative of Save the Children in Burundi's Burundian states has warned that the world seems to have forgotten Burundi, and that it now bears the brunt of the effects of climate change, with children becoming the biggest victims.
He said they are witnessing families that were previously well-established, all children are going to school and two parents who are currently working live in tents, are unemployed, have no food, and children have to work for one dollar a day to make a living for their families.
The new report comes two years after heavy rains hit the East African region, affecting at least two million people and 265 others. Another UN scientific report released in June predicts flooding will cause 2.7 million homeless people a year in Africa and 85 million homeless by 2050.
