Bangladesh offers land for refugees

COX’S BAZAR: Bangladesh has agreed to free land for a new camp to shelter some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled recent violence in Myanmar, an official said yesterday.

The new camp will help relieve some pressure on existing settlements in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar, where nearly 300,000 Rohingya have arrived since Aug 25.

“The two refugees camps we are in are beyond overcrowded,’’ said UN refugee agency spokeswoman Vivian Tan.

Other new arrivals were being sheltered in schools, or were huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields. Basic resources were scarce, including food, clean water and medical aid.

“Tomorrow we are expecting an airlift of relief supplies for 20,000 people,’’ Tan said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had offered 2 acres near the existing camp of Kutupalong “to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers,’’ according to a Facebook post yesterday by Mohammed Shahriar Alam, a junior minister for foreign affairs.

Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatised after walking days through jungles or packing into rickety wooden boats in search of safety in Bangladesh.

Many tell similar stories of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or to die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs.

The government hospital in Cox’s Bazar has been overwhelmed by Rohingya patients, with 80 arriving in the last two weeks suffering wounds and infections.

The violence and exodus began on Aug 25 when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country.