{"id":1489,"date":"2018-03-01T14:17:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T14:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=1489"},"modified":"2018-03-01T14:17:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T14:17:46","slug":"lives-will-be-lost-bangladesh-rains-promise-further-misery-for-rohingya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2018\/03\/01\/lives-will-be-lost-bangladesh-rains-promise-further-misery-for-rohingya\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lives will be lost’: Bangladesh rains promise further misery for Rohingya"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span><\/span>little girl dressed in pink, maybe three years old, is smiling through a rip in a tarpaulin. She is leaning against the bamboo pole holding up her home. Below her is a 15-foot drop, straight down to a dried-up riverbed.<\/p>\n

The steep valleys across the huge Rohingya refugee camps are a growing concern as Bangladesh\u2019s monsoon season approaches. Last summer, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled across the border from Myanmar in the face of an alleged genocide, the\u00a0Bangladesh<\/a>\u00a0government allocated state-owned land for their camps.<\/p>\n

The land was Bangladesh\u2019s reserve forest: beautiful, dense, lush woodland that stretched for miles across the south of the country.<\/p>\n

Within a few months, the forest was stripped away completely, leaving just compacted silt that collapses to dust at a touch. Bangladesh\u2019s monsoon season will soon begin, with weeks of rain. Cyclones can hit the country anytime between March and July.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very worried about the monsoon,\u201d says Mohammed Rofik, 27. \u201cIt was hard enough in\u00a0Myanmar<\/a>, where we had good houses. Those houses would get destroyed by the storms. Here, we have houses made of plastic and bamboo.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The speed of the\u00a0Rohingya<\/a>\u00a0movement across the border last August took aid agencies by surprise. As a result, thousands of homes were built out of nothing more than tarpaulin and bamboo. \u201cLives will be lost,\u201d says one aid worker. \u201cThe houses at the top of the hills are at risk of landslides, the ones at the bottom could flood.\u201d<\/p>\n

One assessment, carried out by Dhaka University and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN refugee agency, suggests that up to one-third of the settlement area could be flooded, with more than\u00a085,000 refugees losing their shelters<\/a>. Another 23,000 refugees living on steep slopes could be at risk of landslides.<\/p>\n

Because of its location at the top of the funnel-shaped Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is especially vulnerable to cyclone damage. In 1970, a cyclone killed up to 500,000 people.<\/p>\n

As aid agencies race to reduce the monsoon risk, they face other difficulties. Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh\u2019s prime minister, has faced enormous criticism for allowing almost 700,000 refugees into southern Bangladesh last year, and the Rohingya have not been granted formal status as refugees.<\/p>\n

With a general election looming in Bangladesh at the end of this year, the government is insisting that the camps are\u00a0not a permanent presence<\/a>. This is complicating monsoon-planning.<\/p>\n

A few brick roads and concrete drains have been built in recent weeks, but aid agencies are banned from making long-term plans. The agencies are constructing bamboo bridges, and handing out sandbags.<\/p>\n

This also means that instead of building schools, aid agencies can only create \u201cchild friendly spaces\u201d.<\/p>\n

Romida, 13, who arrived from Burma about six months ago, said she wanted to learn more. At a child friendly space run by Brac, a Bangladeshi charity, the children are only allowed to sing songs in their native language. They are banned from learning Bengali, to ensure that they will never be able to integrate with the locals.<\/p>\n

There are about 900,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh at the moment, according to\u00a0UN refugee agency figures<\/a>, with roughly 212,000 in the country even before the crisis last summer.<\/p>\n

Some of the camps in southern Bangladesh have existed since the early 90s, meaning anyone under the age of 25 has never lived outside a refugee camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want a good education and a good job,\u201d says Romida. \u201cI am scared I will spend my whole life in a refugee camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madrasas \u2013 Islamic learning centres \u2013 are filling the educational void. All over the camps, children were gathered together, chanting the Koran. The mosques, the most solidly built constructions in the camps, may become part of monsoon planning.<\/p>\n

Unlike many of the world\u2019s refugee camps, the Rohingya communities are not fenced, which is also creating concerns among local Bangladeshis. The area around the camps is poor and rural. Refugees are given a fixed amount of rice, lentils and cooking oil every month, with many selling the surplus on the black market. As a result, the cost of rice, a key local produce, has collapsed along with the price of labour , causing anger among locals.<\/p>\n

Fuel for cooking stoves is not distributed, so children are walking miles to gather firewood for the families. The continued deforestation of the area angers locals, while forest visits pose another risk for refugees, since the reserve forests used to be home to dozens of wild elephants \u2013 some of which remain in the area. Last month, a refugee was killed and a number of people injured when an elephant trampled several shacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the children have to walk a long way to get fuel,\u201d says Rofik. \u201cThe Bangladeshis shout at them, telling them not to take it, but we don\u2019t know what else to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Above Romida\u2019s head, in a child friendly space, a handwritten poster highlights another danger facing refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not go to the toilet alone at night,\u201d it says. \u201cCommunity services are free. You will never be asked for favours for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several refugees say people have been trafficked out of the camps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard that people come to this camp and take the children. Two children were taken on F block. We go to the toilet together at night, and we stay together, so that we are never alone,\u201d says Shamshida, 35.<\/p>\n

The Rohingya have also faced questions in recent weeks, with criticism of some of the stories about the alleged genocide. The Rohingya want humanitarian aid to continue to flow to the camps, and are aware that stories of their plight will keep the aid coming. At a child friendly space, also run by Brac, an eight-year-old girl explains that it took a five-day walk to get to the camp, but that her family were now happy to be in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really happy to be here, because in Myanmar we have to pay for everything,\u201d she says. \u201cBut here everything is free.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rohingyas had faced years of poverty and deprivation in Myanmar. Diphtheria, an illness almost completely eradicated in Bangladesh by routine vaccinations, has swept through the camp in recent weeks. Even before the exodus, education was poor among the Rohingya, with high levels of illiteracy.<\/p>\n

Dr Rifat, working at a clinic, says the literacy rate was problematic. He had to create a system to ensure mothers give the correct medicine to the correct child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI draw symbols on the package, two pills, twice a day, for example,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then I tie a ribbon to the package, and a ribbon round the wrist of the child. Then the mother knows the blue package goes with the child wearing a blue ribbon.\u201d<\/p>\n