UNHCR appeals for solidarity as it hosts with the US, UK and the EU a donor conference aimed at closing a ‘significant funding gap’.
Less than half the $1bn in aid meant for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh this year has been raised
The lack of money has made it difficult for them to provide the food, basic healthcare support the Rohingya need.
The UN refugee agency or UNHCR said on Thursday as it announced plans for a large donor conference next week.
The online event will take place on October 22 in an effort to close a “significant funding gap”.
“Solidarity with the Rohingya people means more than just meeting their basic needs.
Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement.
“Refugees, like everyone else, have a right to a life of dignity and the chance to build a safe and stable future.”
In 2017, a brutal crackdown by the military forced some 750,000 Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh
In violence that is now the subject of genocide charges against Myanmar at the UN’s top court at The Hague.
They joined an earlier wave of Rohingya who had fled earlier violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and were already living in camps close to the border.
Myanmar does not recognise the mostly Muslim Rohingya as citizens.
Even though the minority group has lived in the country for generations.
The UN agency said that it will press for more “sustainable solutions” to the crisis.
Including the “voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return” of the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
The UNHCR did not say how much more money it hopes to raise at the conference.
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The onset of meaningful community self-help and social support for the Rohingya people. In spite of their tragic nature and adverse effects on mental health, emergencies are also an opportunity to build better mental health systems as they are instrumental to the overall well-being, functioning and resilience of individuals and their communities, to help them recover from crisis.
WHO is the leading agency in providing technical advice on mental health in emergency situations. For an effective response to emergencies, WHO endorsed interagency mental health and psychosocial support guidelines recommending services at different levels which include psychological first aid, basic clinical mental health care, psychological interventions, protection and promotion of rights and, finally, community self-help and social support.
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In August 2017 as the plight of the Rohingya people became known to the world, humanitarian assistance arrived from all parts of the world in various ways. Max Frieder, the co-founder and co-executive director of Artolution, a non-profit international organization that brings community-based public arts education to crisis-affected populations, arrived in Cox’s Bazar certain that he would find in the refugee camps skilled artists to jointly develop a meaningful project. He was the pioneer of community self-help and social support in the Rohingya camps.
“We deliver long-term public art education programs to the world’s most vulnerable children and families led by local teaching artists in refugee camps. Our Rohingya Artolution team has created scalable solutions to delivering community resilience building and psychosocial development programs for the first time in the history of the Rohingya culture”, explains Max Frieder.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and partner organizations have further intensified their COVID-19 response in the Rohingya refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh, following the first confirmed case of coronavirus among the refugee population yesterday. Since March, UNHCR and partners have been supporting the Government of Bangladesh primarily in COVID-19 preparation and prevention efforts. With this first confirmed case, response mechanisms have now been activated and will require additional international support.
According to the Government of Bangladesh, one Rohingya refugee has tested positive for COVID-19 in the Kutupalong refugee settlement in Bangladesh. In addition, one member of the local Bangladeshi host community has also tested positive. Both had approached health facilities run by humanitarian partners, where samples were taken. These were subsequently tested in the IEDCR Field Laboratory in Cox’s Bazar.
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Following the laboratory confirmation, Rapid Investigation Teams have been activated to investigate both cases, initiate isolation and treatment of patients as well as tracing contacts, quarantine and testing of contacts as per WHO guidelines.
Testing began in the Cox’s Bazar District in early April. As of yesterday (14 May), 108 refugees have been tested. response
There are serious concerns about the potentially severe impact of the virus in the densely populated refugee settlements sheltering some 860,000 Rohingya refugees. Another 400,000 Bangladeshis live in the surrounding host communities. These populations are considered to be among the most at risk globally in this pandemic. No effort must be spared if higher fatality rates are to be avoided in overcrowded sites with limited health and water and sanitation infrastructure.
On October 12, Monday, international human rights Community, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch community, claimed to have gained conclusive evidence about indiscriminate attacks against civilians inside Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
The groups have collected testimonies, visual evidence, and analysis of satellite imagery to prove that violence against the persecuted Rohingya community has continued. In the last week, as many as nine Rohingyas lost their lives in separate incidents in Myanmar and Bangladesh, where thousands of Rohingya refugees now live in camps.
On October 6, two minors belonging to the community were killed during a gunfight between the militant group Arakan Army and the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw), northeast of the Pyin Shae village in Rakhine State. According to locals, clashes erupted hours after 15 civilians from the Buthidaung township were conscripted by Tatmadaw to be used as human shields in a terrain believed to be mined by militants. Military spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun categorically denied that the soldiers had fired upon civilians. He blamed the Arakan Army for the casualties, adding that the soldiers had reached the area to investigate, only after hearing the artillery blasts.
A day earlier, on October 5, three Rohingya laborers were allegedly gunned down by patrolling soldiers near a bridge in Minbya township in Rakhine State. The civilians have been identified as Nu Mahmad (40), Noru Salam (50) and Mar Dawlar (45). All three belonged to Latma village and were moving in a boat towards the town market.
953,000 people of Cox’s Bazar are now eligible to receive coronavirus-related services from UN-led international community
The 2020 joint response plan (JRP) has been updated with an addendum to provide Covid-19 related services to more Bangladeshis in Cox’s Bazar, multiple sources have told Dhaka Tribune.
On March 3, United Nations agencies and NGO partners launched the 2020 JRP for the Rohingya humanitarian crisis.
The appeal aimed to raise US$877 million to respond to the needs of approximately 855,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and over 444,000 vulnerable Bangladeshis in the communities generously hosting them.
Following the outbreak of the coronavirus, a necessity was felt to update the JRP to fight the virus in order to protect the Rohingyas living in 34 congested camps and the vulnerable host communities, said the sources, adding that an addendum was then added to the JRP to make it worth $1.06 billion from $877 million.
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The updated JRP will enable the provision of Covid-19 related services to 509,000 people from Cox’s Bazar in addition to 444,000 people from the host communities included in the original JRP.
An official of the Inter-Sector Coordination Group, which coordinates the humanitarian activities with respect to the Rohingya crisis, made it clear that the additional 509,000 Bangladeshis are only eligible for services related to Covid-19.
“Under the 2020 JRP, the target is to fulfill the needs of 855,000 Rohingyas. It also aims to meet the needs of 444,000 people belonging to the host communities. The people of the host communities will get support in accordance with their necessities,” he said.
However, he added: “The additional 509,000 considered by the addendum will only receive services related to Covid-19.”
“Undoubtedly, it has been a great help for the people of Cox’s Bazar. With this addendum, more than one third of the population of Cox’s Bazar district can receive quality health care,” said another official.
More than 20 percent of Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugees are struggling with mental health issues, a grim result of the abuse and trauma suffered in Myanmar, an official from the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Saturday.
The statistics were shared on World Mental Health Day, which is marked on Oct. 10 every year, and seeks to highlight the plight of nearly a million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp.
According to data from the Ministry of Health and shared by the WHO, there were 14,819 consultations for mental health conditions registered by the district health department among the Rohingya in 2019.
From January to now the figure has jumped to nearly 20,000.
Most cases were addressed by healthcare centers at the camps, where Rohingya patients were given counseling and treatment.
“In the aftermath of a crisis, one person in five (22 percent) is estimated to have depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia,” WHO spokesperson Catalin Bercaru told Arab News. “The psychosocial and social impacts of emergencies may be acute in the short term, but they can also undermine the long-term mental health and psychosocial well-being of the affected populations.”
The Rohingya have endured decades of abuse and trauma in Myanmar, beginning in the 1970s when hundreds of thousands sought refuge in Bangladesh.
Between 1989 and 1991 an additional 250,000 fled when a military crackdown followed a popular uprising and Burma was renamed Myanmar. In 1992, Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on a repatriation deal that led to thousands of Rohingya returning to Rakhine state. The exodus to Bangladesh resumed a few years ago.
While the refugee crises created by the conflict in Afghanistan and the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas in Myanmar may appear to be disconnected, they are both part of a major migration upheaval in South Asia that the COVID-19 pandemic has only complicated. Already living on the margins of society, Afghan and Rohingya refugees have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. Host countries and the international community need to do more to help alleviate the unique challenges that the pandemic has caused for both of these populations.
Before the pandemic, Afghan refugees in Pakistan already faced disadvantages in access to education, healthcare, banking and financial resources, and property. They have also been subjected to police brutality and arbitrary detention by security forces. While Pakistan does technically have birth right citizenship, this right has been routinely denied to the children of Afghan refugees born in Pakistan, and Prime Minister Imran Khan backed away from his original plan to revise this policy due to political backlash. Given the additional uncertainty around whether these children may be granted Afghan citizenship (many have never set foot in Afghanistan), the risk of statelessness is enormous and carries serious repercussions for the already dire legal and human rights situation faced by Afghan refugees.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these challenges. Though Islamabad lifted its lockdown measures, the initial shutdown caused major disruptions to the day labor sector in which many Afghans work. Restrictions on public gatherings limit already scarce economic opportunities, demonstrated by the closing of a major vegetable market in Islamabad that employed many of the Afghans residing in a nearby refugee camp. Additionally, the constant threat of deportation continues to have a profound effect on the psychological health of Afghan refugees who are now dealing with the additional anxiety of pandemic-related uncertainty. Additionally, the initial closing of key Afghanistan-Pakistan border crossings meant that asylum seekers fleeing violence in Afghanistan would find seeking refuge in Pakistan much more difficult and dangerous, making them significantly more vulnerable to human traffickers and exploitation by criminal networks.
Bangladesh, one of the world’s most densely populated countries, is also home to the world’s largest refugee camp. Across the Cox’s Bazar area of southeastern Bangladesh, nearly one million Rohingya refugees who fled targeted violence in neighboring Myanmar now live in overcrowded, unsanitary camps. As the novel coronavirus pandemic spreads through Bangladesh, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) country representative Paul Brockmann reflects on the current situation for Rohingya refugees, and the medical and logistical challenges COVID-19 will pose to the medical humanitarian response.
Running medical activities in the world’s biggest refugee camp is challenging enough at the best of times. Maintaining these amid the biggest global health crisis of our time is nothing less than Herculean.
MSF has been rapidly scaling up our facilities to respond to COVID-19 in Bangladesh, with isolation beds available in our projects in Cox’s Bazar district. We have rolled out tailored COVID-19 training for all staff, on everything from basic infection prevention and control measures to protocols on managing patients with COVID-19. An effective medical response to COVID-19 requires more than isolation beds, however. We need sufficient staff and medical supplies to protect them and to treat patients, to ensure continuity of care for our other patients, and to ensure effective community engagement and trust.
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One of the immediate impacts of the pandemic has been the erosion of trust. Bangladeshi and Rohingya people are understandably frightened. Rumors and misinformation are rampant, and this is endangering people’s access to care. Tragically, one widely believed rumor amongst Rohingya refugees is that if they are found to have COVID-19, they will be taken from their families and killed.
These fears are keeping people in need of essential (non-COVID-19) treatment away from clinics. Over the last few weeks, we have seen a stark decline in patient numbers. Our facilities have emptied; we are seeing half the number of patients we would normally.
Before COVID-19, our Kutupalong hospital normally saw 80 to 100 patients a day for wound dressings—many for chronic wounds, which need regular cleaning and dressing every two or three days to prevent infection. At present, our medical staff are only seeing around 30 of these patients a day. Without treatment, dressings are likely to become soaked and dirty, risking infection, which can lead to sepsis and possibly even death. Community engagement and empowerment.
On 30 January 2020, COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on the recommendation of the WHO’s Emergency Committee. By 11 March 2020, WHO declared the virus a pandemic—the first coronavirus to be declared as such. Bangladesh recorded its first COVID-19 cases in early March 2020, and since then cases have continued to increase exponentially. At the time of reporting, 317,528 positive cases, 211,016 recoveries and 4,351 deaths had been reported.
Currently, more than 860,000 Rohingya reside in the world’s largest, most densely populated refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. With a population density of 40,000 people/square kilometre, the risk of COVID-19 infection is high. The risk of morbidity and mortality is compounded by a nexus of factors, including local transmission (within Bangladesh), limited health infrastructure, poor health-seeking behaviours, shared sanitary facilities and general unhygienic living conditions. In February 2020, data was collected from 407 listening groups conducted by different agencies. Among them, only 1.2 percent of the groups mentioned coronavirus. The lack of awareness is amplified by the telecommunications blackout imposed across the camps in September 2019.
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In early April, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the host community, followed by the first case in the camp on 14 May 2020. As of 5 September, 4,056 cases were confirmed in the host community (65 deaths) and 130 cases (6 deaths) in the camps.
In order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic in Cox’s Bazar district among both the Bangladeshi and Rohingya communities, World Vision developed and implemented a COVID-19 response plan as part of the organisation’s global COVID-19 Emergency Response (COVER). The programme’s strategic objectives aimed to.
