Arakan News Agency
A senior UN official said that Bangladesh’s plan to build the largest refugee camp to house for more than 800,000 Muslim Rohingya was at risk because overcrowding would ease the spread of deadly diseases.
The overcrowding of the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh has increased as more than half a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25 and the Myanmar army’s violent campaign against the Muslim minority in Arakan state has intensified.
The Bangladeshi authorities plan to expand a refugee camp in Kutupalong near the border town of Cox-Bazar to house all Rohingya.
But Robert Watkins, coordinator of UN operations in Dhaka, told AFP that Bangladesh should look for other sites to build more camps.
“When a large number of people are trapped in a very small area, especially those most vulnerable to disease, it becomes dangerous,” Watkins told AFP.
“If infectious diseases are present, the likelihood of their spread is increasing rapidly,” he said, pointing to the risk of fires in the camps.
“It’s much easier to manage people, manage the health situation and the security situation, if there are a number of camps in different locations and not a crowded one camp,” he said.
At the request of the Government of Bangladesh, the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) agreed to coordinate the work of its relief agencies and assist in the construction of shelters at the new camp site.
According to the migration organization, the camp will be the largest proposed in the world, bypassing Baidi Bidi camp in Uganda and Dadaab camp in Kenya, each home to 300,000 refugees.
Bangladesh recorded four to five thousand Rohingyas a day, with another 10,000 on the border.
Watkins said the steady flow of refugees was “a very big challenge” for aid agencies.
“As soon as we think we are in control of the situation, numbers are increasing, we are not where we should be now,” he said.
“There is more work to be done,” he said.
