Today marks three years since the Rohingya people fled violence and persecution in Rakhine State in Myanmar. An estimated 730,000 refugees have crossed into Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh to find safety and security. While the majority of Rohingya people wish to return to their villages once safe to do so, there has been little progress in establishing a basis for their return.
The challenges facing the Rohingya people, described by the United Nations as “the most persecuted minority in the world, have unfortunately continued following their arrival in Bangladesh. The densely populated camps pose a threat of flooding and landslides during the annual monsoon season, with torrential rains falling in the area in July.
COVID-19 is another major issue, with the first outbreak confirmed in the camps in June and five deaths reported thus far. Despite all this, Concern’s Emergency Director in Bangladesh, Heather Macey says that the mood among the Rohingya community in Bangladesh is one of resilience and defiance.
“They are people before they are refugees. You have doctors and musicians and artists living in these camps. You can't forget that. The people have gone through and survived so much,” she explained.
“They are the drivers of their own change. Despite lack of formal education and lack of training, there's still hope. The people are not hopeless.”
The Rohingya represented the largest group of Muslims living in Myanmar at the start of 2017, with the vast majority of more than one million residents in Rakhine State. Regarded as ‘stateless’ by the government within Myanmar and denied citizenship, the ethnic group had been forced to leave Myanmar in a number of displacements prior to 2017.
In August of that year, reports began to emerge of forces making their way through Rohingya villages in Rakhine State, burning homes, and attacking and killing civilians. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya began their journey to the Bangladesh border, risking their lives to reach the safety of another country.
Now, more than a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh live in 34 camps close to the seaside village of Cox’s Bazar. The camps are overwhelmed with the huge influx of people, with an estimated average population of 100,000 people per square mile. About half of the refugees are children, with more women living in the camps than men. Most of the refugees live in shelters made of bamboo and plastic sheets - structures that are unbearably hot in the height of the summer and extremely vulnerable to the winds and rain of monsoon season.
The Rohingya are not allowed to work and cannot leave the camps without the permission of the Government. However, many have taken on volunteer roles within the camp to help improve conditions for themselves, their children, and their community.
Concern had been working in Bangladesh for 45 years when the first reports of the mass exodus from Rakhine State emerged in 2017 and it rapidly became that this was a major humanitarian crisis. In our initial response, we provided food rations, water and shelter to more than 100,000 newly arrived refugees.
Three years later, we continue to support these communities and work to ensure lifesaving nutrition support for children, pregnant, and breastfeeding women. Much of Concern’s work in Cox’s Bazaar is done by volunteers, made up of an almost equal number of the host population and Rohingya refugees. Host communities, including poor Bangladeshi families living in the area around the refugee camps, have also struggled with this crisis – with rising costs of living and loss of land traditionally used for farming.
To ensure that all communities are supported and alleviate tensions between the groups, Concern’s livelihood interventions have been expanded to include these populations.
"Bangladesh has done an amazing job support the Rohingya people at such a large scale but it comes as a cost to the host community, which also needs to be supported,” said Ms Macey.
Mother-of-six Reshma* was one of the thousands who fled Rakhine State. She and her family found safety in Cox’s Bazaar, but life has never been the same.
“My sister lived in a different village. I didn’t know if she was safe or not. One day, as we were making our way to the border, I saw her on the road and we were reunited,” she said.
“We had a small amount of food with us and shared it out among the community. But everything had run out by the final two days, and we were left with nothing. So, we swam across the River Naf and ended up at the camp.”
Since starting their life in the camp, Reshma’s sister died during childbirth. Reshma adopted baby Tahira*, but the newborn was soon diagnosed with acute malnutrition.
“After I adopted Tahira, I had to rely on powdered milk for her. But it was difficult to afford. She became malnourished and was admitted to the hospital. After that, she was admitted to Concern’s nutrition centre and is receiving peanut paste as a form of therapeutic food. The help we’re getting from Concern means that the baby’s health is improving. Her appetite is increasing and she is gaining weight.