INTERNATIONAL CONCERN MOUNTS FOR ROHINGYA
The BBC, New York Times, TIME magazine, Al-Jazeera, Irrawaddy and openDemocracy (among others) all reported a Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF) February 18 report that many Rohingya in makeshift Bangladeshi camps are facing starvation.
Hundreds of thousands of unregistered Rohingya, a Muslim minority who live predominantly in Burma's western Rakhine State, are now living as stateless citizens inside an unofficial camp at Kutupalong, situated in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazaar district.
Conditions in the camp are tough. According to The New York Times, Kutupalong's dirt paths, flimsy shacks and open sewers has grown by 6,000 people to nearly 30,000, with 2,000 arrivals in January alone.
Denied the ability to work or receive aid in Bangladesh, the population has grown as Rohingya seek refuge from a wave of violence that has forced them out of their long-established homes in other Bangladeshi towns and villages.
Researchers from the Arakan Project, a human-rights group documenting the plight of the Rohingya, claim children from the surrounding makeshift camp are begging for food from the refugees in the official Kutupalong settlement.
MSF reported that: "People are crowding into a crammed and unsanitary patch of ground with no infrastructure to support them. Prevented from working to support themselves, neither are they permitted food aid. As the numbers swell and resources become increasingly scarce, we are extremely concerned about the deepening crisis."
A European Union delegation fact finding in Bangladesh earlier this month issued a resolution in the European Parliament on February 11 calling on the government in Dhaka to recognise the unregistered Rohingya as refugees and to extend humanitarian support.
Children on the Edge is planning to begin working with the Rohingya on their education needs later this year.
Said Children on the Edge director, Rachel Bentley: "Like our partner organisations, we remain extremely concerned at the reports coming out of Bangladesh. The Rohingya cannot return to Burma, so it is imperative a solution is found that satisfies all. We are calling on all sides to talk and resolve the situation peacefully."
