The work to develop a road by the Payra Port Authority is threatening to evict 136 landless families, who made part of the embankment along Andharmanik River at Tiakhali of Patuakhali鈥檚 Kolapra their home two decades ago.
Known as Zia Colony, the landless families were moved to the embankment in 2004 by the then government, the victims said, adding that the work to expand the embankment to turn it into an alternative road by the port authority requires them to leave.
The families are convinced that the work to build the road is motivated by the urge to evict the families, making way for private companies, who are already buying land in the area.
鈥楾hey are asking us to leave. We will not be compensated,鈥� said Ibrahim Shikari, one of the families who held a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity on Monday morning.
鈥榃e warn you that we have no place to move to. We will have to die,鈥� he said, breaking into tears, after reading out the written statement.
Authorities already sent teams with excavators on October 11, 2024 to evict the families living in the area. The eviction attempt was paused following resistance from the villagers.
Laily, a middle-aged woman, wondered how the authorities could ask them to leave without compensation when their houses were built with microcredit loans.
鈥榃e are people of this land still we are asked to go away to make way for companies arriving from elsewhere,鈥� said Laily.
The families shared stories of how they lost their land and ancestral homes to tidal waves, cyclones and river erosion, becoming the frontline victims of climate change.
Devoid of a home, the families lived in other people鈥檚 land for years, moving from place to place until they were finally settled in Zia Colony.
鈥楾he document that the then government had given us was washed away by the cyclone Sidr,鈥� said Forkan Howlader, member of another family.
The families remembered their relatives and loved ones lost over the years in natural disasters and the struggle they underwent to get a home.
The port authority already rehabilitated 3,423 families after acquiring land for the construction of the port, the families said.
The press conference was jointly organised by Kolapara Paribesh O Janasurokkha Mancha and Barisal Bibhagiya Paribesh O Janasurokkha Mancha.
