DHAKA, 11 Nov 2017:
The UN and the Bangladeshi government are stepping up efforts to immunise Rohingya refugees living in overcrowded camps and makeshift shelters, as the number of suspected measles cases is on the rise.
Measles – a childhood killer disease which can be particularly dangerous among unimmunised and malnourished children – is one of the major health risks for the refugees who have fled their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, said the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Rohingya refugees continue to flee into Bangladesh, although at a slower rate than in previous weeks.
As of Wednesday, 613,000 refugees had arrived in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh – since Aug 25, when attacks by Rohingya rebels on Myanmar police and security posts touched off retribution.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) yesterday said the total Rohingya refugee population in the area was now 826,000.
More than half of new arrivals are staying in the Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion site, which merges several pre-existing settlements with new land allocated by the Bangladeshi government, said OCHA.
IOM spokesperson Joel Millman yesterday noted the makeshift sites where the Rohingyas had settled were desperately overcrowded and located on inhospitable, hilly terrain with insufficient drainage and little or no road access.
The few roads that existed were impossibly congested, making it extremely difficult to reach refugees with the support and services they needed, he said.
In the Kutupalong — Balukhali Expansion Site, which is currently home to an estimated 423,000 refugees, and where IOM was responsible for coordinating site management, he said many areas were extremely difficult to access.
“People hiked for hours under the scorching sun, often carrying heavy loads from distribution points, to reach their shelters. Steep hills and dangerous paths meant that children, the elderly and people with disabilities were often unable to move around the site.”
In October, IOM had built some 850 meters of road into Balukhali to enable humanitarian agencies to deliver lifesaving assistance to at least 50,000 refugees. IOM said it was currently working on six other road projects.
As of yesterday, the Rohingya Refugee Crisis Response Plan has received US$143.5 million – or a third of requirements. Donors pledged a total of US$360 million for the response last month and the UN urges donors to disburse this money as quickly as possible.
Secretary-general Antonio Guterres also yesterday renewed his call for unfettered humanitarian access to Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State and demanded the dignified return of the Rohingya refugees to their homes.
“We insist on the need to make sure, not only that all violence against this population stops, but also we need to insist on unhindered humanitarian access to all areas of Rakhine State, including the northern part of this region.
“We insist on the need to reassert the right of return … for all the population that fled to Bangladesh and to the areas of origin — not to be placed in camps, not having access to the places where they left.”
Guterres emphasised the importance of addressing the root cause of the problem, which relies largely on the problems related to citizenship for the Rohingyas — an Indo-Aryan Muslim minority in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar — and to the legal status of this population “that has been discriminated and that is stateless at the present moment.”
– Bernama