Pakistan’s Climate Migrants Face Tough Odds

A man walks through a relief camp for people displaced by the floods in Keamari district, Pakistan, on Nov. 16. Betsy Joles photos for Foreign Policy

SINDH PROVINCE, Pakistan—When floodwaters submerged their farm in 2011, Kashif Abro and his family sought refuge in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, around 250 miles away. They knew their stay would be temporary: They only needed to wait for the water to recede before returning to their four acres of land in Kamber Shahdadkot district in Sindh province, where they grew rice, wheat, and vegetables.

This September, 22-year-old Abro and his family again traveled to Karachi when their village flooded, first taking shelter in a school and later settling at a relief camp outside the city with around 500 other displaced families. But this time, the devastation to their land and the risk of future disasters has convinced Abro’s family not to return. “We are not going back,” Abro told Foreign Policy last month. “There’s nothing for us.”

Historic flooding in Pakistan this year displaced nearly 8 million people, who found themselves at the mercy of unrelenting monsoon rains and swollen waterways. As the floodwaters began to rise and envelop their communities, people sought refuge wherever they could find it: in camp cities, with family members, and on the side of the road. For some flood victims, home is now a charpoy, a traditional woven bed, set up under the open sky.

Nearly 600,000 people from flood-affected districts—most of which are in Sindh and Balochistan provinces—sheltered in relief camps, while at least 50,000 people moved to Karachi, where some like Abro say they are planning to settle. “They think that if we stay here, we can find a better job, a better alternate for living,” Abro said. “That’s why they are staying here, in the same way we are.”

This year’s flooding is the just the latest disaster in Pakistan to force people to leave their homes. Climate change contributes to a slower outflow from rural to urban areas, as people contend with heat waves, droughts, and rising sea levels. These conditions are pushing people to make the difficult decision to migrate, whether to protect their families from environmental risk or improve their economic situation. But in the cities, these migrants face new challenges as they vie for limited space and resources, deepening the inequalities that made them vulnerable to climate change in the first place.

People ride on a boat through flooded areas in Dadu, Pakistan, on Oct. 18.

In Sindh province, around 240,000 people are still displaced from the floods, and land use is marked by longstanding disparities. Feudal landlords control vast agricultural areas and employ rural laborers and sharecroppers to farm and look after their lands, allotting them a small percentage of the harvest and profits. Large landholders are often politically connected, which affords them better access to canal water for irrigation and other agricultural resources. Anwar said these disparities become starker when extreme weather strikes: “The climate crisis adds yet another layer of vulnerability and dispossession.”

Land and resource limitations now overlap with climate change, affecting crop yields in agricultural communities around Sindh. Weather increasingly tends toward extremes in the province, with temperatures pushing 50 degrees Celsius (about 125 degrees Fahrenheit). Heat waves have delayed growing seasons. Before the floods this year, there was a drought. Brackish groundwater supplies, resulting from factors including over-irrigation and poor drainage systems, make it hard for small-scale farmers to maintain their crops.

Abdul Sattar, 58, a farmer who owns 75 acres of land in Tando Allahyar district, said that for many people in his area, farming has become a losing game, no matter how hard they work: “Before the floods there was a huge scarcity of water. Due to the unavailability of water, the cultivation of [some parts of the] land is not possible.” The government’s mismanagement of irrigation resources and the inadequacy of dams and other water infrastructure also plays a role in declining agricultural productivity, Sattar said.

As land becomes harder to cultivate, other farmers from Sattar’s village say their backup plan is to migrate to cities. This rural-to-urban shift is already altering Pakistani society, said Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist who has studied migration in the context of changing weather patterns. As people migrate away from the places their families have lived for generations, they lose a sense of community. “It’s taking a heavy toll, not only economically but also on the social fabric,” he said.

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A young man bathes while standing on a boat surrounded by floodwaters in Dadu on Oct. 17.

The question of how to address these displaced communities is especially relevant in South Asia, where an estimated 18 million people have already been pushed to migrate because of climate change—but are often considered economic migrants. “Why was that economic need created in the first place?” Qaisrani said. “If you go back and reverse engineer that process then you find climate [was] one of the reasons.”

When those fleeing climate shocks reach Pakistan’s major cities, they may not gain much respite. In Karachi, disaster-induced migration puts pressure on already precarious infrastructure. Karachi often ranks among the least livable cities in the world, suffering from a lack of affordable housing, water shortages, and unregulated development. The relief camp where Abro and his family have settled temporarily sits on a rare tract of undeveloped land more than an hour outside the city center.

Victims of climate disasters who migrate to cities such as Karachi may find their socioeconomic status puts them at risk again. Some victims of the 2010 and 2011 floods who arrived in Karachi from elsewhere in Sindh still reside in informal settlements along the superhighway that often flood during the monsoon season.

Abro has already started charting a new path in Karachi, studying law at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Sciences, and Technology and shuffling back and forth from his hostel to his family’s tent at the relief camp. With the loss of his father’s income as a driver and the decimation of his family’s farm, he had to take up work in the camp to try to cover his tuition fees.

Earning money from the land is no longer in his family’s future. “It was the best option for us,” Abro said. “Now—now, it’s not.”