Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
About 22,000 Rohingyas in Bandarban are struggling for survival, as aid agencies are yet to reach them.
They are among the thousands of Rohingyas who crossed into Bangladesh in the last three weeks fleeing a ‘brutal’ army crackdown against the minority community in Rakhine state of Myanmar.
According to aid workers they managed to cross through the remote terrain of their native country without any money or other belongings and taken shelters at four makeshift camps at Chakdhala, Naikhongchhari, in the bordering district.
“They (Rohingyas) are passing days in utter misery, as they are yet to get full access to relief and rehabilitation,” an aid worker told The New Nation on Sunday on condition of anonymity.
He said, “No local and international aid agencies, except Red Cross, are yet to extend their support to them. The support that the Red Cross has extended to them is too little for their survival. Still, they lack of food, shelter, water, medical care and sanitation.”
“They need energy response from all aid the agencies,” he added.
Aid agencies are mainly focusing on Cox’s Bazar, as over 400,000 Rohingyas have arrived there since August 26. They (Aid agencies) are reluctant to distribute relief among the Rohingyas in Bandarban due to perilous communication network between Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban, according to officials of international aid agencies.
“Rohingyas have set-up makeshift camps at the hilly stretches of Naikhongchhari. The area is difficult to access. So, we could not extent our relief supports to them,” an official said.
“We have to endure a tough journey while distributing relief to Rohingyas at Chakdhala. It’s about 70 km from Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya where the authorities have set up storages for relief materials. We’re carrying relief materials from the storages and them distributing it to Rohingyas,” a Red Cross official told The New Nation yesterday.
“They are hard to reach. So, other aid agencies have kept them off to distribute relief there,” he added.
Officials of Barndarban district administration said they are working to relocate the Rohingyas to Cox’s Bazar’s designated refugee camps to ensure full access to relief. But they could not ascertain when the process would start.
