Natural disasters like cyclone and flood and on-going Covid pandemic have taken a heavy toll on the living standard and livelihood of the Mundas, an ethnic minority community in Bangladesh’s south-western district of Khulna.
Most of the Mundas belong to poor wage earner group. They live in 16 remote villages of three unions of Kayra upazila adjacent to the Sunderbans in Khulna.
They were hit hard due to cyclone of Amphan in 2020, breach of embankments in August 2020 flood, cyclone Yaas in 2021 and saline water intrusion in their localities due to saline water shrimp cultivation in the area for decades.
‘The living standard of the ethnic minority group is declining especially after the cyclone Amphan that destroyed their homes, cattle, poultry and standing crops. The on-going Covid pandemic has added to their woes as they had lost their livelihood to a large extent. As they are poor, they are burdened with debt and passing days in utter hardship,’ said Kayra upazila chairman SM Shafiqul Islam.
Munda leaders said that about 300 families of the community live in the upazila and most of the families were yet to rebuild their houses damaged by tje cyclone Amphan.
Besides, they said, the government support allocated for the vulnerable group hardly reach them.
The marginalised community cannot raise their voices as they have no representative in the local government or policymaking bodies, said the community leaders.
The people of the southwester region of Bangladesh are the worst sufferers of climate change, said the leader of a Khulnabased civic group Md Kudrat-E-Khuda.
‘Mundas are poor, they lag behind the mainstream people, get less aid from the government and have no money tackle the situations after disasters,’ said Kudrat, also the president of Paribesh Surakhkha Mancha.
‘Due to disasters, a number of Mundas are migrating to different areas. These affect their culture and indigenous professions,’ he said.
Dhiresh Mahato, a leader of the Munda community at village Hariharpur under Kayra where 54 families of the ethnic minority community live, said that his community people were worst sufferers of the disasters as they mostly live on the Khas lands by the side of the rivers and their houses often damaged due to disasters.
‘Many of our community people are living in thatched houses by the roads since Amphan hit our area,’ he added.
He said that the male members of his community left houses for distant districts for almost six months a year but, in 2020 and 2021, Covid curbs did not allow them to go outside and the people were suffering for thewant of money and food.
‘We now cannot afford adequate food for our family. Education of our children was hampered seriously,’ he said.
He said that many of the Mundas have to go to the Sunderbans braving fear of attacks of tiger as they have no work or employment opportunity in their areas.
Many of them cut trees of the Sunderbans illegally to meet their costs.
‘Our people mainly collect crabs from the Sunderbans. The price of one kilogram of crabs is now below Tk 100 though the price was over Tk 400 two years ago. So, without getting any other alternative, we are damaging our Sunderbans only to feed our children, family members,’ he said.
Balai Munda of Uttar Bedkashi of the upazila said that their community people are deprived of government aids and supports.
‘We cannot get information about the government support for vulnerable groups or the climate change victims that come to the local government bodies and, thus, we cannot demand their fair share,’ said Balai, also the president of Kayra Nritatwik Adibasi Samabay Samity Limited.
He said that only 10 to 15 per cent of the eligible families of their community get the government support for once or twice after the natural disasters.
‘We see that they are becoming poor and fall victim to loan sharks. They need support for meeting their basic needs, like food, shelter, health care and education,’ said Initiative for Right View executive director Marina Juthi.
She said that the government should take specific programmes for the community people for their mainstreaming to meet the government’s target to attain sustainable development goals.
Kayra upazila chairman SM Shafiqul Islam, however, said that they had no specific programme for the community people.
He also said that the community people get some help from the government but, of course, the help was too inadequate to meet their demand.
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