Dhaka offers land for refugees
New camp to ease pressure on existing crowded settlements
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.
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 spokesman 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.
Still, more refugees were arriving. A reporter witnessed hundreds streaming through the border at Shah Puri Dwip yesterday.
“Tomorrow we are expecting an airlift of relief supplies for 20,000 people,” Tan said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had offered 0.8ha 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.
He also said the government would begin fingerprinting and registering the new arrivals.
Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees today.
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 gunshot wounds as well as bad infections.
At least three have been wounded in landmine blasts and dozens have drowned when boats capsized during sea crossings.
Before Aug 25, Bangladesh had already been housing more than 100,000 Rohingya, who arrived after bloody anti-Muslim rioting in 2012 or amid earlier persecution drives in Myanmar. — AP