'Earth began to purge us too': slam poet brings refugee voices to Glasgow

Emtithal Mahmoud, world champion poet and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador is seen during shooting of her poem Di Baladna, which is about the devastating impact that climate change is having on humankind, particularly on refugees, London, Britain November 2021. UNHCR/Andy Hall/Handout via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) - She heard them when she spoke to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and when she met Syrians at a camp in Jordan: the same cries of the dispossessed that rang during her own childhood, when she escaped from Darfur.

Now, Sudanese-American poet Emtithal "Emi" Mahmoud - crowned world champion at the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam in Washington DC - is carrying the message of those voices to world leaders at the climate summit in Scotland.