Arakan News Agency
The United Nations has declared a humanitarian emergency in the border region of Cox’s Bazar, which hosts refugees from the minority Muslim Rohingya who have fled the violence in Myanmar.
Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told a news conference: “An estimated 536,000 people arrived in Cox-Bazar in southern Bangladesh over the past 47 days, while figures rose again this week when some 15,000 Rohingyas crossed into Bangladesh between 9 and 11 October.
Millman said the speed and volume of the flow has led to a humanitarian emergency there, with nearly three-quarters of a million refugees now dependent on humanitarian assistance from shelter, lunch, water, sanitation and other life-saving needs. Before the recent influx of Rohingya, Cox-Bazar hosted some 200,000 people who had fled to Bangladesh in previous waves, putting infrastructure in the region and basic services under enormous pressure, the UN spokesman said.
Aid agencies appealed to the international community to provide $ 434 million in funding as part of a six-month humanitarian response plan targeting 1.2 million people, including Rohingya refugees, and 300,000 vulnerable Bangladeshis living in the border town of Cox-Bazar.
