Overlooked crisis

While there is much talk about climate migration, the world is without a legal framework to protect people displaced by weather disasters

- AKSHIT SANGOMLA

RAYNOLD LOUIMA'S life in Gonaives, Haiti, was upended by the devastating impact of hurricane Tomas in 2010. Already reeling from the aftermath of an earthquake earlier that year, which claimed over 100,000 lives, his farm was decimated by the hurricane. Despite toiling on his family's farm and working on others' land for three more years, a period when Haiti saw prolonged droughtlike conditions, Louima, the eldest son, found it impossible to support his family of seven.

In 2013, the then 23-year-old took the decision to seek a better livelihood abroad for his family's survival. Pooling together resources, including the sale of his grandmother's cherished bull and contributions from neighbours, Louima embarked on a perilous journey to Brazil.

Over the next one month, he travelled to the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and camped at Peru, before reaching Brazil's Acre city to stay at a centre accommodating thousands of migrants from Latin America and Africa, many of whom had left their homes for reasons similar to his.

"After facing the impacts of weather disasters in Haiti, I knew seeking residence in a foreign country was my only hope for a better future," says Louima. Next, he secured a menial job and started learning air conditioner and refrigerator maintenance. In 2016, he married a Brazilian and in 2020seven years after Louima left his home he obtained Brazilian nationality. Today he works as a dental surgeon, runs his own cooling solutions company and a nonprofit, Haiti Sorria, for children.