CARTI SUGTUPU: Alberto Lopez prepares breakfast with water lapping at his ankles. The day began with rain, and his ramshackle home on the Panamanian island of Carti Sugtupu was flooded, not for the first time.
Lopez is one of 1,200 Indigenous residents of the island being relocated to the mainland, as sea level rise due to global warming threatens to permanently devour their ancestral home.
The community is the first in Panama to be displaced by climate change.
Since Monday, residents have been packing and moving their belongings by boat to the Nuevo Carti (New Carti) settlement built for them by the government in the Guna Yala Indigenous region on Panama’s Caribbean coast.
On the island, Lopez lives in a small house with a dirt floor, no toilet, and only intermittent electricity.
In preparation for the move, his family is stacking clothes and other meagre belongings on a small table at the front door, along with cleaning supplies and a Bible.
Their destination, Nuevo Carti, boasts houses that each have two bedrooms, a living and dining room, kitchen, bathroom and laundry – all with potable water and electricity.
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