Some 1,700 Rohingya refugees relocated to new camps — UN
UNITED NATIONS: The crush of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh has forced the relocation of some 1,700 refugees from the main Kutupalong camp into a new nearby camp area, China’s Xinhua news agency reported UN officials as saying.
The total number of Rohingya refugees in southeastern Bangladesh has reached 817,000 – 605,000 of them since Aug 25 – forcing relocations in order to decongest Kutupalong, officials from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Migration Agency (IOM) said.
The newly arrived refugees were taken to Kutupalong Extension, another area provided by the Bangladesh government, the officials said.
The latest crush of refugees followed an alleged deadly attack on police posts in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State. Retributions from the military and vigilantes against the ethnic Muslim Rohingyas allegedly quickly followed.
The overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar, denying attacks forcing Rohingyas to flee, claims the Rohingyas are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many have been living in northern Rakhine State for decades. The Naypyidaw government has tightly restricted travel into northern Rakhine State.
Officials from UNHCR said most of the 1,700 relocated were those who were stranded at a small village at the border for several days last week, waiting for clearance to head for Kutupalong.
A total of 5,000 Rohingya refugees will be moved to the new Kutupalong Extension, part of a larger 3,000-acre site designated by the government of Bangladesh to host new arrivals.
Officials of the IOM said the agency has personnel meeting with male and female community leaders in the original Kutupalong settlement on how best to address residents’ needs.
The agency is trying to ensure that residents know where they can provide feedback and complaints as well as contacts to report gender-based violence. Meanwhile, Unicef warned that the combination of malnutrition, poor sanitary conditions and disease in the refugee settlements is potentially catastrophic for children.
Based on the screening of sick children, Unicef cautioned that some children are close to death by the time they make it across the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh.