A community of indigenous people from Panama received houses from the government on Wednesday where they will live on the mainland, leaving behind, with both nostalgia and hope, their small island in danger of being swallowed by the sea due to climate change. “I’m excited. The houses are beautiful, they are small, but very comfortable,” says Vidalma Yánez, 57, in front of what will be her new home.
The Panamanian government built the Nuevo Cartí development, in the Guna Yala indigenous region, facing the Caribbean, to relocate about 1,200 inhabitants of Cartí Sugdupu, a tiny island threatened with disappearance under the waters due to rising sea levels. “The climate crisis that the world is experiencing (..
.) has forced us here in Panama to move the island to this development of around 300 houses,” said President Laurentino Cortizo, as he handed the keys to the first of the benefiting families. The residents will start moving from June 3 to 6 from their island, about 15 minutes away by boat.
They are the first climate change displaced people in Panama, according to the government. The indigenous people have lived in overcrowded conditions without basic services in Cartí Sugdupu, an island the size of five football fields where houses have dirt floors, and walls and roofs made of cane, wood, and zinc sheets. It is one of the 365 islands of the Guna Yala archipelago, several of which are at risk of flooding.
The 49 inhabited islands are only between 50 cm and .
