BARGUNA, Bangladesh

Mohammad Sohrab Khan, a 70-year-old man, was sitting beside the Buriganga River with his grandson on his lap.

Old age has forced the former fisherman to spend most of his time with his grandchildren as he is no longer fit to take on the challenge of catching fish in the river or the sea.

Sitting under a coconut tree on the riverside, he was seemingly searching for something in the river near the estuary of the southern Bay of Bengal in the coastal district of Barguna.

“I have been living here since my birth. The river has grabbed our land, house and other properties two times. Now I along with my other family members live in a small tent along the roadside as floating people,” Khan told Anadolu, pointing to a place in the river where once he had a big house, cattle, poultry and croplands.

Like Khan, the river in this area of Zintala under the subdistrict of Patharghata has swallowed the homes and properties of nearly 2,000 people in the last two decades.

A small house made of wood and tin along the river was on the verge of collapse due to river erosion, while another small house was seen fallen below the broken riverside along with some fallen trees.

At a close distance, a man with a black Panjabi lungi (traditional local dress) and a topi (Muslim prayer cap) on his head was standing in a gloomy mood.

Pointing to the tin house, the man, named Mohammad Zaber, claimed the riverside house was a mosque where people living on this remote riverside have been praying for many years.

“I am the Imam of this mosque. The fallen house is mine that fell down two days back due to river erosion. Maybe in a few days, this mosque will be grabbed by the river,” Zaber said.

Due to climate change impacts and other natural disasters, river erosion has become a regular feature in many areas across the Bishkhali River along with the alarming rise in salinity, according to locals and analysts.

While visiting the southwestern side of the subdistrict, it was also found that hundreds of families have become victims of river erosion across another big river, Baleshwari.

“Just a few years ago, there was a big primary school, a concrete mosque, over 200 houses, and a big pond. But all have gone inside the river,” Alamgir Hossain, a resident of the area named Padmar Shulij, told Anadolu, standing on a river-protecting sandbag.

He added that most of those destitute families are now homeless and many of them live across the roadside while some have taken shelter in government houses built under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's housing project for landless people.

The affected people said they do not want relief items anymore, they want a permanent solution to river erosion and salinity.

Concrete embankment

Local community leaders as well as analysts assessed that without strong embankments with concrete blocks, river erosion can’t be controlled in the coastal regions.

“This is a longstanding problem for us. But it’s not possible for us to solve it by ourselves. The government should take a long-term resilient program and set concrete blocks to stop this destructive river erosion,” M. Matur Rahaman, former chairman of Patharghata Union Council, told Anadolu.

Rahman, also one of the senior residents of the area, added that most of the southern coastal areas of Bangladesh are very sandy with little concrete soil.

“So our localities are always prone to river erosion and for a sustainable solution, the government must develop strong embankments with concrete blocks instead of weak sandbags,” he assessed.

According to Bangladesh’s government data, over 42 million people currently live in 19 coastal districts of the country under severe threat from climate change.

In the global climate risk index, Bangladesh ranked 7 as one of the worst affected victims of global emissions and by 2050 the rising sea levels will submerge some 17% of the country’s coastal lands, displacing about 20 million people.

Climate-induced migration

Speaking to Anadolu, Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Executive Director at Coast Foundation NGO, said that like Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, Bangladesh should construct sustainable embankments with concrete blocks in coastal areas to stop migration.

“Bangladesh should also raise this issue at global platforms with proper paperwork so that the developed nations who are mainly responsible for carbon emissions and global warming are made to share the cost of developing climate-resilient facilities in coastal Bangladesh,” Chowdhury said.

Emphasizing proper monitoring, he added that Bangladesh must ensure accountability and proper utilization of all funds to be mobilized to strengthen climate resilience in the coastal regions.

Referring to the joint initiatives by public, private, and international resources to address the crisis, the chief executive of a local research institute Change Initiative, M Zakir Hossain Khan, added that green entrepreneurship should be promoted for climate migrants through the adoption of national climate migrants or displacement mechanism.

Regarding embankment, he added: “Multipurpose sustainable coastal embankment should be built in a manner so that the Tidal River Management system wouldn't be hampered and a community-led operation and maintenance system shall be introduced.”

Effects of Farakka Barrage

Meanwhile, the chairman of the National River Conservation Commission of Bangladesh, Manjur Ahmed Chowdhury, told Anadolu that Indian-made Farakka Barrage over the common river Ganga (Padma in Bangladesh) is destroying the ecological balance and putting a serious adverse impact on the flow of river water in both countries.

“Due to the Farakka Barrage, during the summer or dry season, water flow into Bangladesh becomes less, causing siltation on the river beds, while in the rainy season, it causes erosion due to overflow of water,” Chowdhury said.

Underlining the barrage as a man-made ecological problem, he noted that it not only causes siltation inside Bangladesh but also affects the upstream regions inside India.

“I have talked to some ecologists in India and they have also informed me about the siltation in Bihar, Murshidabad, and some other regions in India due to this Farakka Barrage,” Chowdhury said, adding that to protect many Bangladeshi rivers and stop the emergence of salinity this barrage should be demolished.

He called on the authorities of both South Asian nations to hold dialogues on this issue immediately for the ecological interests of the two neighboring states.