Arakan News Agency
The Bangladesh government has taken a plan to shift 25,000 more Rohingya families from the slopes of hills by May 15 to save them from mudslides, said disaster management and relief affairs secretary Md Shah Kamal.
He said this replying to reporters at a news briefing called by the DMRA Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya at his office on Tuesday.
Shah Kamal said that 25,000 Rohingya families had already been shifted from the hill slopes to safer places.
The government took the initiative to relocate the Rohingya families after UNICEF said in Geneva that over 100,000 people including approximately 55,000 children, mostly Rohingyas, were exposed to risks of landslides and floods in the Cox’s Bazar district.
Shah Kamal said, a total of 50,000 families were living on the hill slopes and that the government already shifted 25,000 families.
‘We will shift the remaining 25,000 families to a 123-acre place between Kutukhali and Balukhali, near the Kutupalang Rohingya camp,’ he said.
Maya said that the government had taken adequate measures to face landslides keeping in mind that the landslides had killed 166 people.
He said that by sensitizing local disaster management committees, the government held workshops, meetings and processions in 35 upazilas in the districts of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Khagrachari, Bandarban and Rangamati to raise public awareness about landslides.
It’s possible that 200,000 people were exposed to the risks of landslides and floods in Cox’s Bazar depending on the intensity of rains,’ a United News of Bangladesh report said quoting UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac as telling a regular news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
An estimated 700,000 Rohingyas, mostly women, children and the elderly, entered Bangladesh fleeing persecution by Myanmar military, what the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing in the Arakan province of Myanmar since August 25, 2017.
The latest Rohingya influx into Bangladesh increased their number to over 1.1 Million , according to the estimates of the UN agencies and the Bangladesh foreign ministry.
