Storm Daniel, which struck central Greece in September 2023, devastated the town of Palamas, leaving behind a chaotic mix of mud, debris, dead cattle, and shattered lives.

Vaios Giatropoulos moved with his family to a village where their home is on higher ground. Returning is unthinkable. “I don’t want to feel that sense of dread with every drop of rain. For several months, we feared it would flood again. I even thought about seeing a psychologist,” he recalls.

Giotopoulos belongs to a steadily expanding group of Europeans: the continent’s first climate migrants. Displacement within national borders is no longer an academic issue, as more people are affected by storms, floods, wildfires and droughts.

The Geneva-based NGO Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) estimates that approximately 413,000 people were displaced in the EU between 2008 and 2023. So far, 2023 has been the worst year on record, with over 200,000 Europeans internally displaced, mostly due to wildfires and storms.