Photo credit: Munem Wasif / Agence VU

[Agence VU] In the last 10 years, farmers like Hatem Ali have had to disassemble and move their tin-and-bamboo houses five times to escape the encroaching waters of the huge Brahmaputra River in Kurigram. This river is swollen out of all proportion by severe monsoon that scientists attribute to global warming and melting ice in the Himalayas. Bangladesh with a population of 140 million people crammed into an area slightly smaller than the state of Illinois is a target of the most vulnerable to global warming.

Some must live with the memory of losing grip on their child when he is swept away by tidal waves at angry awakening of Sidr. Some may still view their lost crops swaying in the fields and today empty, while others have traces of dried tears on their cheeks when they remember their own piece of land swallowed by the fury of the river. Once, villagers happy, they have became climate refugees.

Munem Wasif is a documentary photographer born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1983. A graduate of Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, Wasif started his journalistic career as a feature photographer for the Daily Star, a leading English daily in Bangladesh. Now he is represented by Agence VU. In this photoset Wasif has put together a series of photographs which aim to tell stories of people who have lost their livelihood and way of living due to the ever growing issue of climate change.

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Source: Agence VU