[Concerns over shelter are just the beginning. Aid workers fear that rains could cut off homes from receiving food, gas and medical help. Young refugees are especially vulnerable to malnutrition. Latrines could collapse into the muck, creating a sanitation nightmare. Cases of diphtheria — a disease that has now nearly vanished in the West but has made a comeback in the camps — could see a catastrophic surge as immunity declines.]
By
Vidhi Doshi
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Refugees
wade through water pooled after a storm at the Chakmarkul camp in Cox's
Bazar, Bangladesh,
on June 10. (Kristiana Marton/Save the Children/Reuters)
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COX’S
BAZAR, Bangladesh — If it hadn’t been for her neighbors, Toyoba
Khatun would almost certainly be dead.
The 65-year-old Rohingya refugee was buried
alive on June 10 after her home collapsed in the first rains of the monsoon. A
video of her rescue shows her face weary with exhaustion as men dig frantically
to pull her from the mud that minutes before had been a part of the hill on
which she lived.
“Allah didn’t take me, but he could have,”
Khatun said a few days later, still weakened by the ordeal.
Bamboo and tarpaulin are all that the
Rohingya — hundreds of thousands of whom crossed into Bangladesh after fleeing
a military crackdown in Myanmar — have as shelter from the heavy rains and
cyclones that lash the region each year. The rains have already caused 100
landslides this season, most of which were small in scale, and aid agencies
estimate 185,000 people are at immediate risk of being caught in the landslides
or floods in the coming months as storms batter the world’s largest refugee
camp.
Concerns over shelter are just the beginning.
Aid workers fear that rains could cut off homes from receiving food, gas and
medical help. Young refugees are especially vulnerable to malnutrition.
Latrines could collapse into the muck, creating a sanitation nightmare. Cases
of diphtheria — a disease that has now nearly vanished in the West but has made
a comeback in the camps — could see a catastrophic surge as immunity declines.
Aid groups have been preparing for this since
February by leveling hills and relocating a fraction of the most vulnerable
people to homes on safer land. But space is tight — Bangladesh’s government has
allocated a limited amount of land for refugees — so at best, only 40 percent
of those at risk will be relocated this monsoon season, said Frederic Cussigh,
senior field coordinator for the United Nation’s Refugee Agency, or UNHCR.
Those who remain in high-risk areas are
buttressing their homes with sandbags or moving into mosques to stay safe.
But the rains are still causing damage, and
they will only get more intense as the season progresses.
One night last week, Soyeda Khatun’s
3-year-old son died when their home collapsed in a landslide. Khatun became
trapped and could not free her son, who was buried in the mud.
“I was screaming to save my children, I was
asking for help,” she said, still injured and weak in her home, which was
rebuilt by aid workers.
When the toddler was found, he was already
dead.
Those who survive are at risk of losing their
few treasured belongings in the storms.
“All our property, our rice, our oil,
everything was destroyed,” said Mahmoud Amour, 41. Three women and two children
in his family were buried in mud after their home in a nearby camp was
destroyed. “I don’t have anything else to wear anymore, except what I’m wearing
now.”
Since the exodus from Myanmar began in
August, the refugees have lived in shelters cut haphazardly into hillsides — a
necessary solution that was supposed to be temporary as tens of thousands
arrived each day. But in the process of building the shelters, refugees
uprooted trees that held the soil in place and used the mud as the foundation
for the bamboo frames of their homes, wherever they found space.
Humanitarian workers say they are battling
the clock to make homes safer.
On Monday, aid workers began moving an entire
neighborhood — 21 families — to newly built shelters on leveled ground. Noor
Ayesha, a 46-year-old woman who was being relocated, cried as she took one last
look at the place she and her family have called home for the past 10 months.
“I don’t know whether to be happy or sad,”
she said. “When I came here, I made friends with the neighbors. I will miss my
home.”
Around 15,000 people like Ayesha have already
moved, but aid workers said the departures are happening too slowly. By the end
of June, another 7,000 will be relocated. These moves are not easy to
coordinate: Relocating brings painful memories for refugees, including Ayesha,
who trudged through forests and rivers to escape to Bangladesh. Many refuse.
For Ayesha, that was not an option. The house
next to hers collapsed a few days before, and hers could easily crumble next.
The refugees, who may not have planned to
stay so long in Bangladesh, cannot yet return home. Plans for repatriation to
Myanmar have stalled because the nation’s government refuses to grant
citizenship to Rohingya. Rights groups and activists have warned that the
repatriations under the current circumstances might endanger the lives of the
Rohingya. The U.N. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Myanmar about
repatriation, but the details of the agreement have not been released.
Bangladesh also does not want the Rohingya to
remain in the country. The government has granted permission for only temporary
housing in the camps, so in this limbo people go without necessities like access
to the electrical grid and public schools.
The Bangladeshi government is making plans to
relocate 100,000 refugees to a low-lying, uninhabited silt island by August.
But the U.N. has called for an independent assessment of the island to ensure
it is safe and that Rohingya settled there are free to move to and from the
island.
Refugees are preparing themselves to endure
this season of misery. They are sharing videos — like the one of Toyoba Khatun
— to raise awareness about what could happen. They are taking classes from
nongovernmental organizations to learn what they can do to minimize the impact
of the rain.
“We will rebuild our homes,” said Moryam
Khatun, who moved into a mosque when her home was destroyed in a landslide last
week. “We will continue.”