気候変動で１０万人超が国内避難　東アフリカ・ブルンジ

【ナイロビＡＦＰ＝時事】東アフリカの内陸国ブルンジで、気候変動に伴う自然災害のため、ここ数年間に１０万人以上が家を追われて避難生活を余儀なくされている。子どもの権利保護団体「セーブ・ザ・チルドレン」が２０日、最新の報告書で明らかにした。（写真はブルンジ西部ブジュンブラで豪雨の被害を受けた民家）
　セーブ・ザ・チルドレンによると、ブルンジの国内避難の主な要因は紛争ではなく「気候ショック」だ。「国内避難民の８４％以上が（中略）紛争ではなく、自然災害により家を追われている。アフリカ第２の湖、タンガニーカ湖の水位上昇が主な原因だ」という。
　最も被害を受けているのは子どもたちで、「避難民のうち推定７２００人、全体の７％が１歳未満の乳児だ」と報告書は述べている。また、学齢期の子どもも学校に通うことができず、多くが１日１食だけでしのいでいるとしている。
　セーブ・ザ・チルドレンの調査に応じたアリエルさん（１７）は、夜のうちに増水したタンガニーカ湖に自宅がのみ込まれた。れんがを運んだり積んだりする仕事で１日に１．２ドル（約１３０円）を稼いでいるものの、食いつなぐのに苦労していると語っている。
　東アフリカでは２年前、ＡＦＰ集計で２００万人近くが長雨の被害を受け、少なくとも２６５人が死亡した。この異常気象の原因はインド洋の東西で海面温度が大きく異なったことで、高い海面温度により蒸発量が増え、大量の湿った空気がアフリカ内陸部に流れ込んだためとされる。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/09/22-10:14）

Natural disasters sparked by climate change have forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes in Burundi in recent years, British charity Save the Children said in a new report released on Monday.
It said climate shocks -- not conflict -- were now the main cause of internal displacement in the landlocked East African country, which has a largely rural population.
Over 84 percent of all internally displaced people in Burundi... have been displaced due to natural disasters rather than conflict, mostly due to the rise of Lake Tanganyika, Africa's second-largest lake, the charity said.
Children have been particularly hard-hit, it said, adding: An estimated 7,200 of the displaced people -- or 7 percent of the total number -- are babies under the age of one.
Older children are unable to attend school, with many surviving on just one meal a day, the charity said.
Arielle, a teenager whose home was swallowed up in the middle of the night by the lake's rising waters, told Save the Children she struggled to eke out a living, earning $1.20 (one euro) a day for carrying and stacking bricks.
I eat most days, but some days I miss meals altogether, the 17-year-old said.
- 'A gross injustice' -
Displaced farmers told the organisation that flooding disasters had intensified in recent years.
The situation with flooding has become worse than it used to be. This time, the flood came over everything and never went back, said Marie, a mother-of-three.
I fear the children are going to die from hunger.
Maggie Korde, the charity's country director for Rwanda and Burundi, warned: The world seems to have forgotten Burundi, and yet it's bearing the brunt of global climate change, with children the most affected.
We are seeing families that previously had solid homes, all children in school, and two working parents, reduced to living in tents with no employment, no food, and kids having to work for a dollar a day to support their family, she said.
This is a gross injustice for a community that has already experienced so much hardship.
The report comes two years after relentless rains affected close to two million people in East Africa, and left at least 265 dead, according to an AFP tally.
The extreme weather was blamed on the sharp difference in sea surface temperature between the western and eastern areas of the Indian Ocean, with warmer waters resulting in higher evaporation and moist air flowing inwards over the continent as rain.
The waters around East Africa have been about two degrees Celsius warmer than those of the eastern Indian Ocean near Australia -- an imbalance well beyond the norm.
A leaked UN climate science report, seen exclusively by AFP in June, predicts flooding will in future displace 2.7 million people in Africa annually and could contribute to 85 million being forced from their homes by 2050.