I am Ahmed. I’m originally from a rural village in the Noakhali District of Bangladesh. I started my journey immigrating to the United States in March of 2008, and after 9 long months crossing multiple continents and dozens of countries, I finally reached Brooklyn, New York, in November of 2008, and it’s been my new home ever since.

As soon as I arrived, I was eager to begin working and supporting my family that remained in Bangladesh. I have 4 brothers and 3 sisters, and together we have supported our 3 youngest siblings since our parents passed away when we were young. It is for them that I made the difficult decision to come to the United States for work after we repeatedly faced cyclones and devastating floods year after year.

In 2004, there was a severe flood that lasted 2 months. The government didn’t offer any support or provide shelter. We tried to raise our house on bricks, but it was no use. Our home was completely submerged. Everyone in our village suffered. All the crops were destroyed so we had no income. The fish we used to catch and eat were carried away with the flood waters. My family was starving. We were surrounded by water, but none of it we could drink. It was only through the village coming together and trying to collect aid and money, that we were able to get by. I feared my family wouldn’t survive unless I could find a way to support us from another country.

We could not rely on the government to help us recover after a disaster. In fact, all the government could offer was a loan, but failure to pay this loan meant potentially losing the only land and source of food you had. My family was very poor. We had no proof of income, so I knew I wouldn’t qualify for any type of visa. Instead, I borrowed ৳25,000 to pay a trafficker to get to the US.

There were many hopeless moments where I was scared I wouldn’t make it – crossing the sea for hours, facing big waves without a life vest, or crossing the border in a hot and packed covered truck, being told we had to be absolutely still and quiet or we would be caught. But I never thought about going back home because we have already lost everything. How could I rebuild my home or produce crops for my family?

Now, although I can’t go home, I’m able to provide for my brothers and sisters. And since I joined DRUM – Desis Rising Up and Moving – in 2017, I have tried to attend every single meeting and become a defender of human rights in my community. That is why I’m here with you all today to share some of my story and how climate change is affecting communities like mine facing worsening disasters year after year and losing what little we have to survive.

Thank you for listening to my story and for supporting communities displaced by this climate crisis. We must come together to reduce the harm of climate change and ensure people have both the right to stay, rebuilding in their communities, and the right to leave when necessary.

My name is Beatriz, and I’m a proud Moskitia woman from Nicaragua. My Moskitia people have become targets of the Nicaragua government for not supporting President Ortega. For a long time, we have had to struggle against colonial powers occupying our land, but once the Ortega regime came to power in 2015, the violence intensified. 

The government began arming mestizos (non-indigenous people) and helping them reach our lands through the mountains in order to forcibly remove us. If we refused to leave, they could kill us with impunity. Two of my cousins lost their lives trying to defend our right to live on our land. Our village representatives were captured and imprisoned until finally being exiled. The government is trying to eliminate us from our lands so that they can mine it for gold and oil, and sadly, there is little we can do to stop them.

In 2020, my village took a direct hit from back-to-back hurricanes, Eta and Iota. My home, like the rest in our village, was made of wood, and it was completely destroyed by the force of the winds. It rained for an entire night, and our village was flooded. Trees fell on top of homes, and our crops were devastated. The sea life we depended on for food and income were gone. 

The government tried to take advantage of this climate disaster. If we agreed to vote for President Ortega in the upcoming elections, they would offer us food, money and work. But we we’re firm in our convictions and could not accept a corrupt government. In response, the government began to resettle mestizos displaced by the hurricanes in our territory, promising to build them homes for free and offer them new jobs. We asked ourselves, where can we go now?  

My husband was the first in our family to immigrate to the United States with our 11-year-old son in 2021. My eldest son later followed with my brother. In November of 2022, I was able to save $1,000 to cover the trip and leave with my youngest daughter who was 5 years old at the time. I had fears about being kidnapped by Mexican gangs, being killed by the cartel, or drowning as we crossed the Rio Grande to the US as so many unfortunate people have. I went on this journey blindly with only God’s grace protecting us. After reaching the border, I was detained for 3 days before being released to go live with my brother in Baltimore, Maryland. 

My brother was a member of CASA and that is how I was able to receive legal support and begin my asylum process. I was never asked about the hurricanes for my asylum case, and I didn’t think to mention it at first. It was only after I learned about climate justice at CASA that I realized how the hurricanes had displaced us and were weaponized against us. 

I’m grateful to be here today, to be able to support my family that remains in Nicaragua, and to be a voice for my indigenous people, the Moskitia. The world must take action to fight climate change, and at the same time, bring justice to indigenous and immigrant communities like mine. 

Malado Barro has been an active member of African Communities Together (ACT) since 2014. Originally from Mali in West Africa, Malado arrived in New York City 29 years ago after she completed her Masters from the University of Quebec in their Natural Resources Sciences program in 1995. As a child, Malado’s father raised animals that she would be responsible for shepherding to graze and find water. It was a big responsibility for a young woman during those times, but those moments when it was just her with the animals and land she truly felt freedom and most connected with nature. It is where her love for nature and dreams of raising fishes began. In the early 70s, Mali experienced five years of relentless drought that had brought catastrophe to millions of people in the sub-Saharan region causing famine that took a grim toll of at least 100,000 people in the area and livestock communities depended on for food. For Malado and her family, water became harder to obtain and they had to travel very far to find it. Research indicated the four main causes of the Sahelian droughts were sea surface temperature changes, vegetation and land degradation, dust feedbacks and human-induced climate change.

The Sahel droughts of the 1970s and 1980s played an important part in laying the foundations for the political turmoil, violence and mass migration that occurred in the 1990s. Malado briefly returned to Mali after completing her studies in 1995, but because of the conflict, scarcity of land and inability to cultivate crops, she, like many other Malians, left the country for more stability and opportunities. She dreamt of having a pond to raise fish, but because of the ongoing conditions in Mali it did not give her much hope to stay in the country. She accepted an offer to complete her studies in Aquatic Environment in Louisiana in 1995 and moved to New York City in 1997 where she previously taught high school biology.

Malado is also a certified interpreter providing services in Bambara/Mandingo, French and English and has been interpreting since 2014, where she received her first interpreting training from the International Refugee Committee. She started to interpret in hospitals and in schools to help Africans make their voices heard.

Since recording her climate displacement story in 2024, Malado has begun the process of returning to Mali to develop a sustainable farm on her property using the pisciculture techniques she studied in Louisiana. She is excited to use her farm to give young Malians tools to adapt to climate change.

My name is Patricia, I am from Cameroon in Central Africa and an asylum seeker here in the USA. I came to the USA in March 2022, due to the violence I witnessed because of an ongoing civil war in my country. I had to run for safety for my life and that of my family.

Prior to migrating to the USA I had migrated internally inside my country in 2015 from Maroua in the Far North region to my home town Bamenda due to the effects of climate change which led to harsh climatic conditions that had serious negative effects on the health of our children. My husband and I had moved to the Far North Region of Cameroon- Maroua permanently where we both had jobs.

The Far North Region is part of Cameroon, which shares boundaries with Lake Chad, and is the driest area of Cameroon. The Far North region of Cameroon has two seasons: a dry season and rainy season. The climate is hot and semi-arid, with a rainy season from mid-May to September, (5 Months)while the rest of the year (7 months) is characterized by hot and dry weather, often with scorching sun above 40-45oC. During the hottest months from March to May average temperatures are above 92 °F and can go up to 105°F, all rivers dry up and water becomes very scarce. In some localities women get up as early as 4am and walk kilometers to get water.

Due to global warming and increasing temperatures the rains now come much later for only 4 months with strong winds and more rains causing floods and loss of properties. The flooded areas become good breeding ground for mosquitoes causing Vector-borne diseases like Malaria, and other diseases like heat boils, cholera and meningitis especially in children. This year 2024 in May due to the extreme heatwave, the highest record in history in that area, 50 to 60 people died everyday, especially amongst the elderly and children.

Life in the Maroua was very very difficult and unbearable due to the extreme heat causing me constant health issues living as an individual. It became worse when I had children. I had three of my kids in Maroua. They were always sick and could only enjoy good health for as little as two to three months in a year during the cold periods, and we spent lots of money (about 30% of our salaries) on their health navigating from one hospital to the other each month.

I remember a time when my daughter was sick with malaria and bacterial infection causing her to have very high fever. Five nurses were on her trying to get her vein to no avail, I had visited all hospitals in the town and they tried all kinds of medicines to no avail but she kept falling sick. I was so desperate as a first time mum not knowing how to help my daughter. Her two brothers would experience constant malaria, bacteria infections and a lot of painful heat boils during the hot seasons. I almost lost my brother when he was about 5 months old. He was so sick with high fever, the doctor tried every medication to bring down the fever and identify the cause of the illness to no avail, and decided to transfer him to another hospital. That is when I broke down, believing he was dying until a nurse proposed an antibiotic that was new and had not been used in that hospital which helped to reduce the fever and treat the infection. I equally lost my cousin due to Meningitis in Maroua. Many other unfortunate kids have died and continue due to climate change.

The frequent health challenges of our children caused a lot of absences at work and complaints from my boss. Due to these challenges we decided to leave Maroua to the North West region with a favourable climate, and I resigned from my job as administrative assistant in Plan International a non profit organization and remained unemployed for two years. But I was excited and at peace because my kids enjoyed good health and became more healthy. Little did I know my joy would be cut short when war broke out in the Northwest region in 2017 and my husband and I became targets and our lives were threatened. I survived two kidnappings with my kids witnessing it crying and wondering if their mum will come back alive. For our safety and that of the kids we moved to the USA.

Why am I telling my story? Before I joined the Climate Justice movement, like many other people, I never knew that I had a climate displacement story. By telling our stories, we educate people and help to bring out the reality of climate change and the effect on migration, be it internal or external migration to other countries it does not matter. Climate change is real and intensifying the factors that lead to forced migration is important. Which is why we must prepare to welcome people displaced by climate change instead of turning migrants away or criminalizing them. We must advocate for new immigration pathways and expand existing legal pathways to take into consideration the devastating effects of climate change. During my asylum procedure, there was no question related to the climate impacts I experienced in my country.

We must also demand that polluting corporations and rich nations that are primarily responsible for causing the climate crisis, pay for the loss and damage they have caused and invest in the resources that vulnerable communities need to overcome the impacts of climate change and stay in their communities and thrive.

We need global climate justice now! Thank you for listening to my story.