Researchers have found that women and girls in the conflict-torn nation of South Sudan are facing greater health risks and worsened inequality due to the negative impacts of climate change as the country battles record-breaking heat.

The findings published ahead of International Women’s Day marked on March 8, by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of scientists, said February’s heatwave was made about 10 times more likely – and 2 degrees Celsius hotter – by human-caused climate change. 

Last month, heatwaves in the country saw dozens of students collapse from heat stroke in the capital Juba, causing the country to close down schools for weeks, making it the second time the country has shut schools during a heatwave in the periods between February and March. It did the same when temperatures reached as high as 45 degrees Celsius in March last year.

These occurrences are unusual as the hottest temperatures of the year are not usually expected to occur as early as February, when this year’s extreme heat was observed, said the researchers.

Most schools in the country are built with iron roofs that trap heat and do not have air conditioning, creating very hot conditions for students, WWA said in a statement. High temperatures are expected to persist throughout March.

In the face of these extreme weather events, women and girls tend to suffer more as school closures disrupt children’s education and make it harder for girls to return to learning, the researchers said. Additionally, jobs and household chores typically done by women expose them to dangerous temperatures and increase the risk they will suffer heat-related illnesses, the analysis found.

Improving ventilation, planting trees and painting schools lighter colours can help reduce temperatures in classrooms and keep schools open, said Kiswendsida Guigma, a climate scientist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in Burkina Faso. Adapting the school calendar and class schedules can also help avoid severe disruptions to education, he added.

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Friederike Otto, WWA’s lead and a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, said the study reiterated how people who are already struggling under unequal conditions experience the most harm from extreme weather worsened by the burning of fossil fuels.

“Unyielding gender roles, the need to care for children and a lack of other options than exposing themselves to excruciating heat, means that in war-torn South Sudan, each of the now frequent heatwaves hits women more, deepening the divide between the genders,” Otto said.

Globally women are more likely to “die during extreme weather events”, as well as experience food shortages and violence after them, she added. The solution, she said, is to reduce these inequalities and cut planet-heating emissions from using fossil fuels.

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The study, carried out by 17 rese