The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is expected to soon issue an advisory opinion on states’ obligations toward internally displaced persons affected by climate change. “Internally displaced people exist on every inhabited continent,” Erica Bower, a researcher on climate displacement with Human Rights Watch, said in a phone interview with Mongabay. “The advisory opinion could make it very clear that states have obligations to provide durable solutions for people displaced by disasters.” In Africa, according to the Platform on Disaster Displacement data, in 2024 millions of people were displaced from roughly 20 African countries as a result of climate-related disasters including floods and coastal erosion.

Senegal offers a prime example. Roughly a decade ago, a community along the Langue de Barbarie, in Saint-Louis, was forced to move following severe coastal erosion. “The sea destroyed our homes.

There was no space left for us to live,” Khady Gueye, a former resident, told Mongabay in a phone call. “So, we left, and they settled us on a football field. We stayed there for nine months before moving here to Khar Yalla.” She has lived in Khar Yalla for 10 years, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the land where she, her mother and her grandmother were born.

She said Khar Yalla has no infrastructure for a long-term community. “There is nothing here. No health center, no school, no market, no sanitation, nothing,” she said. “We are 13 people living in a house with only two rooms, without electricity … and…This article was originally published on Mongabay