More than 14,100 children suffering from malnutrition

In camps, half a million refugees depend entirely on charities for survival

The five-year-old Rohingya boy was so emaciated that doctors could not insert a drip into his tiny arm, one of thousands of children facing life-threatening malnutrition in overstretched Bangladeshi refugee camps.

“He said he hadn’t eaten anything in eight days. Nothing,” said Dr S.K. Jahidur Rahman at a clinic run by Bangladeshi medical charity Gonoshasthaya Kendra.

The lucky ones make it to the overwhelmed clinics just in time. But some are not so fortunate, dying before help can reach them or forced to beg by the roadside.

The United Nations (UN) says more than 14,100 children are at risk of dying from malnutrition in wretched camps where half-a-million mainly Rohingya refugees depend entirely on charities for survival.

Uncoordinated efforts

Food distribution in the vastly overcrowded settlements is still ad hoc and uncoordinated, the UN says, more than a month after refugees began pouring into southern Bangladesh to escape ethnic bloodshed in Myanmar.

Huge crowds descend on aid deliveries and soldiers need to herd starving people Myanmar authorities took foreign diplomats and United Nations representatives on a tour yesterday of conflict-torn northern Rakhine state, where a security crackdown has led to an exodus of more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims.

Three groups of diplomats were taken to three different areas, said Ye Htut, district administrator of Maungdaw in Rakhine. He did not provide details on the diplomats’ nationalities.

A previous guided visit for diplomats scheduled for last week was abruptly cancelled.

Local officials in Rakhine said the tour includes meetings with relatives of victims allegedly killed by militants during the violence against Hindu, Mro and Daignets minority communities in Maungdaw township. In the morning, the diplomats were taken to Anaut Pyin village of Rathedaung township, a community of Rohingya Muslims who have not fled, said local police officer Moe Zaw. into bamboo pens where they squat cheek by jowl under the scorching sun for a meal.

Many go hungry as charities scramble to feed 500,000 mouths every day.

Children make up the bulk of new arrivals and are most vulnerable to the paucity of food, with 145,500 infants under five needing urgent intervention to stave off malnutrition, aid agencies say.

“Lots of children are showing all the signs of hunger and malnutrition,” said Save the Children’s emergency health unit director Dr Unni Krishnan.

In a clinic for infants suffering the severest malnutrition, Monura tried to soothe her gaunt 13-month-old daughter Rian Bebe, whose cheekbones jutted out below sunken eyes.

“Skin and bones,” lamented Shaheen Abdur Rahman, the hospital’s resident medical officer, of the dying girl brought to his ward. “It was a very grave condition.”