Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Rohingya Refugee Camps Threatened By Monsoon Rains

         This article was written by Jason Beaubien and published on nprs website on August 25, 2018. Beaubien is on the grounds of Balukhahli refugee camp in Bangladesh documenting the horrors that the Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar from and the new threats they face from monsoons in Bangladesh. According to the UN and the U.S., the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Beaubien writes that "this week marks the one-year anniversary of the start of a massive exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar" and "nearly 700,000 Rohingya fled attacks by Myanmar soldiers and pro-government militias". The camp is filled with make shift shelters made with bamboo and plastic. Also, they are packed so tightly together with no room to walk in between each shelter. As you can imagine these shelters are in no shape to stand up to the monsoon rains that have poured down from the sky in the past months.
         Aid groups have tried very hard to reinforce these shelters in hopes that they will be able to better withstand the rains and landslides, but Beaubien observed that despite theses efforts "thousands of shelters and other structures in the camps have collapsed". The U.N. aid agency has been working to stabilize these camps by extending into the surrounding areas and building walled shelters. As of this past March over 40,000 refugees have moved into the newly built shelters. Even though there has been some progress made to improve the living condition of the largest refugee camp in the world, there is still so much that must be done for this group of people that have suffered indescribable atrocities and my hearts breaks for them.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/25/641568806/forced-to-flee-myanmar-rohingya-refugees-face-monsoon-landslides-in-bangladesh

Also if you want to know more I found this report done by Human Rights Watch

https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/12/19/massacre-river/burmese-army-crimes-against-humanity-tula-toli



   
       

No comments:

Post a Comment