Flies sit on the face of a girl as Rohingya refugees wait for some aid to be distributed at a camp in Cox’s Bazar for those who recently fled from Myanmar on Sunday. — Reuters photo
Thousands of Rohingya children who have entered Bangladesh fleeing violence in Myanmar are suffering from malnutrition and traumatic stress with their memories of murder, rape and arson attack on their near and dear ones.
International aid providers said that the Rohingya children coming from a poverty prone area of Myanmar were now living in shanties without proper food and sanitation facilities and drinking contaminated water in most cases, which would increase their malnourishment.
Many of these children are traumatised. Memories of seeing killing, slaughtering and arson attack on their near and dear ones and experience of trekking through hills and muddy roads and crossing rough sea by wooden boats while fleeing Myanmar are putting huge mental pressure on them and their mental growth would certainly be hampered, said people working with UNICEF and Save the Children.
They said that assistance to the Rohingya children to save them from severe and medium malnutrition and traumas was still not near the need. They urged all to come forward to help these vulnerable children.
Many of these children are orphaned or separated from the parents and deprived of major source of a child’s emotional and physical security, they said, adding that these separations might put devastating social and psychological impacts on them.
Desperate Rohingyas continued to flee to Bangladesh to save life even risking life crossing the River Naf or the Bay of Bengal by wooden boats while two more Rohingya drowned in the River Naff and dozens remained missing as a boat carrying about 35 fleeing Rohingyas capsized in the river in Bholar Char area near Shah Parir Dwip of Teknaf at about 10:00pm on Sunday.
Of the over 5,19,000 Rohingyas entering Bangladesh so far, about 60 per cent are children and 30 per cent are under 5 years, According to UNICEF.
Save the Children Bangladesh director for programme development and quality Reefat Bin Sattar said that 1,25,622 children were identified as malnourished, including 33,930 with
severe acute malnutrition and 91,692 with moderate acute malnutrition.
He said that they were providing 26,000 children with psycho-social support and counselling to address trauma they suffered from violence and displacement and to build their resilience and coping abilities.
‘Support we are providing to these malnourished and traumatised children was no way near the need,’ said the UNICEF official.
UNICEF officials said that many of the children who were being provided with psycho-social support were almost silent and hardly talked and played with other children as they were still living in fear.
Masuda, 13, said that she still dared not to stay alone.
Somsida, 11, at Balukhali said that she could not sleep at night as she used to dream people running, shouting and fighting.
Save the Children in a statement on October 5 warned of a malnutrition crisis in Cox’s Bazar, where over half a million Rohingyas arrived in the past six weeks.
UNICEF Bangladesh chief of health Maya Vandenant said that there was a high level of severe malnutrition amongst Rohingya children which exacerbated the risks associated with an outbreak of acute diarrhoea.
According to UN estimation on Sunday, 5,19,000 Rohingyas arrived in Bangladesh from Rakhine state of Myanmar in the past six weeks in the new influx what the United Nations called the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency.
Officials estimated that the new influx already took to 9.33 lakh the number of Myanmar people living in Bangladesh.
The influx began after Myanmar security forces responded to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s reported attacks on August 25 by launching a violence that the United Nations denounced as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
Terrified, half-starved, exhausted Rohingyas continued entering in Bangladesh in groups trekking through hills and crossing rough sea and the River Naf on boat and taking shelter wherever they could in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban.
Many Rohingyas took shelter at makeshift camps in reserved forests, felling trees, setting up shanties on hill slopes while some of them took shelter at overcrowded registered and unregistered camps.
Desperate, traumatised children and their families are entering Bangladesh every day.
‘We are scaling up our response as fast as we can, but the magnitude of need is immense and we must be able do more to help them. These children are being deprived of a childhood. They need our help now and they need our help to have a future,’ said UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake, while visiting Bangladesh in first week of October.
New Age correspondent in Cox’s Bazar reported that two more Rohingyas drowned in the River Naff and dozens remained missing as a boat carrying about 35 fleeing Rohingyas capsized in the river in Bholar Char area near Shah Parir Dwip of Teknaf at about 10:00pm on Sunday.
Cox’s Bazar additional superintendent of police Afruzul Haque Tutul said that the Coast Guard recovered two bodies and eight others alive from the river.
Inclement weather could be the reason of accident and causing huge disturbance for rescue process, he said.
The incident took to 135 the number of Rohingyas, mostly women and children, drowned in the bay and the River Naf since August 25.
Road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader, also the ruling Awami League general secretary, on Sunday said that Bangladesh would not close border for Rohingyas until international pressure and diplomatic effort became successful to stop violence in Rakhine.
Talking to the reporters on the sideline of a programme, he said that the decision was made on humanitarian grounds and the situation remained unchanged.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters that he would visit Myanmar within this month for talks with the Myanmar government on repatriation of the Rohingyas.
‘The agenda is being prepared by our ambassador to Myanmar and the designated officials of the foreign ministry here,’ Asaduzzaman said, adding that the main agenda would be quick repatriation of the Rohingyas.
Transparency International Bangladesh on Sunday strongly condemned the United Nations for its failure to take cognisance of the crisis and act upon a report of an independent expert it commissioned before the military crackdown in Rakhain.
TIB expressed deep disappointment that the United Nations not only suppressed the report it received in May 2017 but also ignored the prediction that security forces were going to be ‘heavy-handed and indiscriminate’ in dealing with the Rohingyas.
Source: New Age
