The climate emergency leaves clear and devastating marks in different regions of the planet. This time, it is reflected in the rise in sea level and its impact on the coasts of Sierra Leone, in West Africa.
There, several islands and entire communities are disappearing under the ocean.
This, combined with extreme weather events and coastal erosion, is generating a humanitarian and cultural crisis of great magnitude.
Rise in sea level and the collapse on the islands of Sierra Leone
In the coastal district of Koya, the islands that for generations housed fishing and farming communities are literally being swallowed by the sea.
In places like Mano Town and other island villages, inhabitants have lost their homes, farmland, and even cemeteries that now lie underwater.
“My house was there where the sea is today,” recounts one of the displaced residents to ABC. Thus, what were once productive and habitable areas are now territories submerged by the ocean’s advance, with waves that do not even respect the old limits of solid ground.
The crisis in Sierra Leone. (Photo: ABC).
Environmental and social emergency: the drama of climate displacement
The situation in Sierra Leone is an alarming example of the impact of climate change on the most vulnerable coastal communities. Without natural barriers or infrastructure to contain the water’s advance, hundreds of families are being displaced without resources or planning.
The combination of increasingly frequent storm surges, erosion, and intense rains has transformed the landscape and living conditions in a matter of years.
“This is not just an environmental crisis, it is a crisis of human rights and cultural loss,” warn experts from international organizations.
In addition to losing their homes, these communities are witnessing the disappearance of their traditions, their ties to the land, and their ancestral ways of life.
The islands were not only places of residence but also spaces for cultural transmission, family memory, and local knowledge tied to fishing, agriculture, and spirituality.
With each disappearing island, a part of African cultural heritage is erased, a loss that is measured not only in economic or environmental terms, but also in symbolic ones.
Sierra Leone as a mirror of a global crisis
What is happening in Sierra Leone is not an isolated phenomenon. According to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the rise in sea level could affect more than 1000 million people worldwide by 2050, especially in low-income coastal regions.
The paradisiacal islands of Sierra Leone, in danger due to the rise in sea level. (Photo: Wikipedia).
Countries in the global south, which have contributed less to greenhouse gas emissions, are the most affected by global warming. The case of Sierra Leone becomes a symbol of climate imbalance and environmental injustice.
Various specialists agree that time to act is running out.
Adaptation measures, such as community relocation, the construction of natural barriers, or the strengthening of early warning systems, are necessary, but do not replace the urgency of reducing global emissions and halting planetary warming.
The situation in Sierra Leone reminds us that climate change is already here, and its effects are real, urgent, and profoundly human.