S.Leone islanders despair as rising ocean threatens survival

NYANGAI ISLAND

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Wading through water up to his knees, Hassan Kargbo points to the vast ocean before him, which is eroding the land and imperilling residents’ survival on his island off Sierra Leone.

“Where we are now, it used to be my house, and we used to have a big football field,” Kargbo said, but “the water destroyed everything”. Over the past five years the 35-year-old fisherman has seen the losses pile up as the rising Atlantic waters, which threaten millions across his west African nation, have claimed enormous portions of his island. The inhabitants of Nyangai, located in the Turtle Islands off southern Sierra Leone, have made virtually no contribution to global warming, driven by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. Yet they are widely considered the country's first people displaced by climate change, as the ever-hotter temperatures melt more of the Earth's ice caps, swelling the seas around the archipelago. The majority of Nyangai’s exhausted residents have lost their belongings and homes several times over, as they crowd further into the island’s interior.

An AFP team was able to visit several of the Turtle Islands, travelling seven hours by canoe in rough seas from the capital, Freetown. On arrival in Nyangai, pelican colonies, white sand beaches and palm trees make the island appear almost like a paradise. Then the devastation comes into focus: palm trees uprooted by wind and wave, beaches littered with branches and debris, sandbags serving as insufficient ramparts, abandoned furniture scattered by people who have long moved on. In less than 10 years, the island has lost two-thirds of its surface area, and now measures only about 200 metres long and 100 metres wide (approximately 650 by 330 feet).