As recurrent drought pushes communities from southern Angola into northern Namibia, those crossing the border are finding that movement brings a new set of risks. Amnesty International researcher Dr Mandipa Machacha speaks to Jamila Versi about climate displacement, colonial borders and why protection cannot end at the frontier.
“Drought and hunger, drought and hunger” is how Amnesty International researcher Dr Mandipa Machacha remembers Angolans describing what had forced them to leave home and cross into northern Namibia.
Angola has been hit particularly hard by the climate crisis, which has taken the shape of recurring droughts and irregular rainfall. With the livelihoods of farmers destroyed, the “hunger” displaced Angolans describe speaks to a much broader picture: water scarcity, failed crops, the loss of livestock and, ultimately, the loss of the livelihoods which had allowed them to remain at home.
Machacha is a Gender Research and Policy Advisor at Amnesty International and was one of the lead researchers on a new report examining the movement of people from southern Angola into northern Namibia called “The Drier It Gets The Longer You Have To Walk, The Deeper You Have To Dig” – The Human Rights Impacts Of Drought-induced Displacement On Angolan Women & Children In Namibia.”
The research began with a scoping mission in May and June 2024, followed by a second mission a year later. What the researchers encountered on that first visit changed the direction of the project.
“We got to certain places in northern Namibia, and we just started seeing swaths and swaths of women and children who are from Angola,” she says.
At the heart of the report, Machacha explains, are people who have been “forced to move to survive”.
The people Amnesty spoke to were often vulnerable long before they reached Namibia. Successive droughts had left families living in poverty and facing water scarcity, while crops had failed and livestock had been lost.
A major flashpoint came in 2021, when around 7,000 Angolans crossed into Namibia. Many were women – including pregnant and breastfeeding women – and children.
“When you see older women moving, when you see women moving, when you see children moving, it’s a shock thing,” Machacha says.
That was particularly noticeable in a region where migration has historically often involved younger men travelling elsewhere for work before returning home, while women remained to maintain the household.
Cross-border movement in subsequent years has not been accurately tracked due to the absence of comprehensive data collection systems, but cross-border movement continued in subsequent years, with 2025 seeing the worst drought Angola had faced in 40 years, which left 1.6m people in southern Angola facing “high levels of food insecurity”, according to the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
A drought vulnerability study showed that, in southern Angola, water scarcity and hygiene conditions were a major issue. In some villages, according to the IFRC Report, over 50% of the population consumed water from unsafe sources and over 90% did not have access to latrines, thus accentuating issues of water-borne diseases and malnutrition.
Water availability index predictions expect this to continue, with decreasing water availability of over 50% for South Coast areas. 75% of households reported having lost all their livestock, which meant that some of the movement was pastoralists seeking grazing land. “Some of the losses will take 10, 20 years to recover,” says Machacha.
Long-standing migration routes
The report is careful not to present movement across the Angola-Namibia border as something entirely new.
Communities in southern Angola and northern Namibia have longstanding family, cultural and economic connections. People have crossed between the two for generations to trade, move livestock, work, access services and visit family.
The border itself cuts through communities whose relationships existed long before colonial powers drew the boundaries which now separate them.
“These borders would not exist had it not been for the Berlin Conference (in which imperial powers divided and colonised Africa),” Machacha says. “We’re fighting amongst ourselves as if this is real, as if these borders are real, as if we were the people who decided upon them.”
What has changed is the pressure driving some of that movement.
Recognition for climate-displacement
Climate-displaced people face an additional challenge: they are not officially recognised. Discussions around the recognition of climate-displaced persons, also known as CDPs, have been ongoing in international bodies, particularly as climate change increasingly impacts migration globally.
The current 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee around persecution that is based on religion, nationality, race, political opinion or membership of a particular social group. In 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur unsuccessfully called for a protocol to amend the 1951 Refugee Convention to include those displaced by climate change.
Amnesty has deliberately avoided using the term ‘climate refugee’ in the reporting. “We didn’t want to muddy the waters and have people going against the term instead of understanding the issues. It’s a huge part of the analysis – a gap in the reality that we’re seeing and the protection frameworks that we currently have.”
Human Rights Risks
Once people make the crossing into Namibia, they face a new set of human rights risks. “People are crossing because they need to survive, but then once they’ve crossed, they lack the legal status,” she says. “That creates an entirely new set of human rights risks.”
Without regular immigration status or documentation, many face barriers to healthcare and education, inadequate housing and difficulties accessing food and water.
Some people from border communities do not have birth certificates or other forms of documentation in the first place.
This can make people reluctant to access even the services which may technically be available to them. Migrants told researchers that they feared going to hospital or attempting to register their children for school could alert immigration authorities to their presence.
“The Namibian government has said to us many times, there’s no Angolan refugees in this country, despite the fact that I literally saw thousands of people that were there,” Machacha says.
She describes some of the housing conditions researchers encountered as among the most severe she had seen during six years working at Amnesty International. “People were living in makeshift shelters made of sticks, plastic, really, really crowded conditions. Some people didn’t even have shelter, and they just kind of slept in the open. And when it rained, it rained on them and their children.”
“They kind of just slept in the open,” she says. “And when it rained, it just rained on them and their children.”
Women and children face particular risks. The report documents cases of trafficking and exploitation, including labour exploitation. Some children are also removed from school because their families need them to work and bring in money, which can in some cases amount to child labour.
For Machacha, this exposes one of the central contradictions facing people displaced by drought – they may cross the border because remaining at home has become impossible, only to find themselves vulnerable in a different way once they arrive.
Displaced Angolans also face the continuing fear of arrest, detention or return; one of the main things Amnesty’s report highlights is the danger of refoulement, that is, when refugees are forced to return to a country where they face danger.
In the case of Angolans in Namibia, Machada argues, authorities need to examine individual circumstances and the risks someone may face if returned.
“Crossing a border does not mean losing your human rights,” she says, “we’re also trying to say to the Namibian government that, even if you don’t believe these particular people are refugees, you can still not approach the situation as an immigration enforcement situation,”.
The Namibian Context
The situation is made more complicated by the fact that Namibia is not a wealthy country insulated from the climate pressures affecting its neighbour.
Indeed, Namibia is itself highly climate-vulnerable and declared a state of emergency in 2024 when it was hit by the worst drought it had seen in 100 years. The consequences were severe. According to the CARE Crisis Report, the wheat harvest was 83.7% below the previous year’s level, and in March 2025, around 1.3m people in the country were affected by food insecurity.
Machacha is keen to avoid presenting the situation as one in which vulnerable Angolans are simply moving from a climate-affected country into an unaffected one. “Here, we’re dealing with two countries that are both highly climate vulnerable and on the same level of vulnerability, and neither of the countries has been a significant contributor to the climate crisis.”
Both countries face environmental pressures. The difference, she says, lies partly in adaptation.
Southern Angola is heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture and livestock, but communities there have seen limited investment in areas such as water infrastructure and social protection. Namibia, despite experiencing its own drought and food insecurity, has invested more extensively in climate adaptation.
Climate Justice and effects
Beyond both countries sits the wider issue of climate justice.
Angola and Namibia have contributed relatively little to the climate crisis, despite being particularly exposed to its effects. Machacha argues that historically high-emitting countries therefore have a responsibility both to reduce fossil-fuel use and to provide climate finance to developing countries trying to adapt.
But she also stresses that governments across the Global South need to prepare for displacement that is increasingly likely to happen.
‘We just kept walking’
The Amnesty Report is adamant that the Angolan Government has obligations to protect communities and, where possible, prevent people from being forced to leave their homes. Once people have crossed the border, Namibia, despite struggling with their own climate challenges, has obligations towards those now living within its territory.
Machacha highlights that many of the Angolans Amnesty interviewed did not want to leave Angola, “they would just rather be at home, living the life that they want to live.”
For Machacha, the report ultimately comes down to three messages: people are moving to survive; crossing a border should not mean losing your human rights; and governments need to prepare for climate displacement rather than simply reacting once a humanitarian crisis has already emerged.
Perhaps the simplest explanation of the first came from one of the women interviewed for the report. She described a journey which could take 10 or 20 days, walking and hitching rides where possible, made even longer when travelling alongside children or older relatives.
“We just kept walking,” she told researchers. “Hunger pushed us forward.”
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Climate-displacement adds to Africa’s internal migration numbers
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