Bangladesh eases aid group access to Rohingya

DHAKA: Bangladesh has eased restrictions on aid groups working in refugee camps and sought US$250mil (RM1bil) from the World Bank for emergency relief, officials said, after an influx of over 435,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar overwhelmed its border area.

The government’s NGO Affairs Bureau cleared 30 local and international groups to meet “emergency needs” in camps and said more would follow, bureau director Shahdat Hossain said yesterday.

Bangladesh has strictly limited access to Rohingya camps in recent years. It has never given reasons, but it is sensitive about security and there are fears that a Muslim influx could tempt extremist groups.

However, a new deluge of refugees since Aug 25 has put pressure on the existing camps, which were already home to 300,000 Rohingya Muslims who had fled earlier unrest in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar.

The camps are currently facing dire shortages of food and medicine, while the World Health Organisation warned on Monday of a growing risk of cholera.

The aid groups still only have permission to work for two months in the camps around the border town of Cox’s Bazar, Hossain said, and must focus on providing healthcare, sanitation facilities and shelters for the Rohingya.

The new groups include local and international charities. Authorities previously only let four international groups, including Doctors Without Borders and Action Against Hunger, provide food and healthcare.

Muslim Aid, a British-based charity given permission to operate in Cox’s Bazar last week but whose access was later revoked, remains barred. It operates in other parts of Bangladesh.

Dhaka-based BRAC, one of the world’s largest charities, is among the new groups allowed into the camps.

BRAC senior director Asif Saleh said in a Facebook post that the scale of the “humanitarian crisis” was much worse than what was being portrayed by the media.— AFP