ROBERTSPORT, Grand Cape Mount County – Francis Gray points to a small hill beneath a banana tree with a yellow flower planted on the top. The tiny grave contains the remains of his 19-month-old daughter, Linda.

---

By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh with new stories

---

Linda was the center of Francis and her mother Amie Sheriff’s world until one day in August torrential rain caused the nearby drainage ditch to swell. The little girl had been sleeping indoors as her parents took advantage of the sun to hang clothes outside to dry. When they returned, they found Linda’s lifeless body in the ditch.

“Before we could get the child to the hospital, the child was gone. It was the water that killed the child in our hands,” Amie said.

Linda is the second child in the community to die by drowning this year. In June, two-year-old T. Boy Kamara drowned in another drainage ditch.

“His mother put fish on the dryer, so he and the other children went outside the house,” said Boima Kazolu, T. Boy’s uncle. His grandmother, Bendu Dorkorsah, sat on a bench nearby, crying.

Residents say floods have also polluted water sources and created a breeding ground for an army of mosquitoes.

“Right now all the well water is spoiled, even for cooking, we don’t have good water and we can buy bags of water for cooking and even drinking,” said Annie Flomo, mother of four, crying.

Heavy rain has caused some of the worst flooding in recorded history across the country. Liberia’s National Disaster Management Agency has confirmed that nine people have died and more than 100,000 have been displaced from their homes in sixty communities.

“We are overwhelmed that we do not have the resources to cover the entire country,” Ansu Dorley, head of the Disaster Management Agency, told state radio in October. “We have situations all over the country. This is a learning curve for us, so we need to put more resources into national disaster management.”

Experts say this should come as no surprise. A. Climate change is making the situation worse every year. This year, the funds to support the flood victims come exclusively from international donors. In August, the World Food Program provided $1.5 million in aid to 26,000 flood victims. Before that, she only supported the Red Cross with $500,000. First responders say that’s not enough.

“When more than 60 communities across the country are affected and thousands of people need help, there is very little you can do,” said Gregory Blamoh, general secretary of the Red Cross. “That then means we (the Liberian government) have to bear a larger share of our burden. You have seen these developed countries that are also suffering from floods. China was flooded, Japan was flooded, and parts of America and Europe were flooded. If they have to spend their money, it means they don’t have much to help people like us.”

Climate change will shrink Liberia’s economy by 15 percent if nothing is done

Experts say the effects of climate change are getting worse faster than expected. People aren’t just losing their homes. They also lose their livelihood. The World Bank warned that climate change could shrink Liberia’s economy by 15 percent and push an additional 1.3 million people into poverty by 2050 if nothing is done.

This is already happening here in Robertsport. It has been hit by two climate disasters.

Heavy rains caused the nearby lagoon and Lake Piso to flood low-lying areas of the community. At the same time, rising sea levels – caused by the melting of the polar ice caps – are making their problems worse.

45-year-old Annie Flomo is a fishmonger and single mother of four children. She spent her days drying and selling fish to support her family. That changed one night in October when the flood washed away their house.

“The children were sleeping and the water came violently,” she said. “We were all running around fighting for the children.” There was little support. Annie doesn’t know what she’s going to do now. “We haven’t seen the superintendent. We haven’t seen anyone from this county come to our aid,” she said. “We lost everything because of the way the water came, we didn’t take anything with us. I only came out wearing these clothes you see on me.”

Liberia’s national seafood supply has also been impacted. According to manager Archie Noni, the city’s only cold storage facility once delivered thousands of pounds of fish to customers every week. It was wiped away.

“In 2024 we will no longer have cold storage. We just got a big box to keep people’s fish in,” Mr Noni said. “At the moment we don’t actually earn anything. The maximum we can now store per week is around 150 kilos.”

People here are thinking about moving. This will only add to the growing crises in urban areas and Liberia’s illegal mining sites. People will also be vulnerable to human trafficking scams. But people like Francis see little other choice.

“In August it rained heavily and then the hunger was too great,” said Francis. “We want to move, but we have nothing and no place to go.”

Award-winning environmental expert Silas Siakor called this year’s floods unprecedented and called on the government to invest in mitigation measures, such as strengthening housing and urban development policies and adopting agricultural practices that protect communities from environmental risks.

“This is only going to get worse in poor countries like Liberia, and that’s why … we need to take measures to make sure we protect ourselves,” Siakor said.

As the effects of climate change worsen, there will be fewer and fewer safe places in Liberia. Experts say time is running out to save lives and livelihoods in the coming years.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the American Jewish World Service. The funder had no influence on the content of the story.