UNB, Cox’s Bazar :
Humanitarian agencies working on the Rohingya refugee response on Tuesday marked the completion of the first new area of land being prepared to relocate families most at risk of landslides when the monsoon hits.
An initial 12 acres of newly prepared land is now ready to receive shelters and other key services, including water, hygiene and education facilities, and is capable of providing new homes for nearly 500 families living in some of the most high-risk parts of the refugee site. The work is part of a major joint initiative among International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and World Food Programme (WFP). It has involved using dozens of earthmoving machines and a workforce of over 3,500 labourers, including both Rohingya refugees and members of the host community, to prepare the land so that families can move to safer grounds. The heads of all three agencies in Cox’s Bazar underscored the urgent need for more funding to allow critical lifesaving work to go ahead before monsoon hits. “Seeing this first area of land now ready for the next stage of relocation shows the practical and life-saving achievements that can be created from this kind of interagency collaboration to keep refugees safer,” said IOM’s Emergency Coordinator in Cox’s Bazar Manuel Marques Pereira. “With monsoon season almost upon us we will continue working urgently to prepare more land, coordinate services, secure vital access ways and ensure we are ready to respond to emergency situations when they arise,” he added.
Almost 700,000 Rohingyas have fled violence in Myanmar since August 2017, bringing to around 900,000 the total number of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar district.
The vast majority of the refugees are living under tarpaulins and bamboo shelters on steep sandy slopes in the desperately over-crowded mega camp. Across all the settlements, around 200,000 people have been identified as being at high risk of flood and landslides when Bangladesh’s notorious cyclone season and heavy monsoons hit in the coming weeks.
