In Search of Homes: Climate Refugees Meet Walls

The United Nations (UN) projects 200 million climate refugees (people displaced by climate change) by the year 2050, which is about 200 times more than the Syrian refugee crisis back in 2011 (UNHCR). All those people will lose their homes and wander around in search of new homes; some of them will become internally displaced people, and others will try to cross borders only to meet walls. The average person lives 17 years in a refugee camp before they relocate to a third country and get resettled. Refugee camps are some of the most populated and overcrowded places in the world. This makes refugees vulnerable to communicable and other diseases that are easily transmitted from person to person or through vector. The rapid rise of global warming and the global pandemic crises we are amid right now (COVID19) make it harder for people to ignore the refugee crisis and act slowly. Most of the climate refugees aren't even afforded recognition as refugees and allowed to live in the harsh life of the refugee camps. As a refugee myself who lived in a refugee camp for 19 years, I will discuss what are the causes, the impacts, and solutions of the climate refugee crisis through a refugee’s lens.