Arakan News Agency
UNICEF has taken an initiative to provide special bracelet to around 250,000 Rohingya children so that their families could trace them during emergencies.
The Rohingya children, not yet in their teens, would get the bracelet with information such as name and a specific number so that their families could trace them in case of any kind emergency like cyclone, flood and landslide, said UNICEF officials.
‘Initially we will provide 250,000 bracelets for the Rohingya children,’ one of UNICEF Bangladesh spokes
persons AM Sakil Faizullah informed.
‘We will give this bracelet to children who are not yet in their teens,’ he said, adding that they already ordered the bracelets so that they could distribute them soon.
‘With the bracelet, they will be easily traceable if lost in normal circumstances,’ Sakil said.
UNICEF officials said they took the initiative as monsoon was approaching in the Bangladesh and aid workers fear that a cyclone and landslide could cause more sufferings to the Rohingyas living on hill slopes in Cox’s Bazar.
In Bangladesh, pre-monsoon hot season with rain usually starts in March through May and full force monsoon lasts from June through October, when floods also occur.
Cyclones generally strike Bangladesh in March through July and September through December with the greatest number of storms in May and October.
‘If a cyclone and landslide or any other natural calamities take place, we will be able to identify children and reunite them with their families,’ Sakil said further.
UNICEF officials said that already 5,000 Rohingya children were separated from parents and relatives in the violence in Arakan state of Myanmar and roaming in Cox’s Bazar in search of their near and dear ones.
Department of Social Services in between September to November 2017 listed 36,373 Rohingya orphan children –– 17,395 boys and 18,978 girls –– who lost their parents, mother or father, or lost contact with them during the exodus, and 7,771 of them lost both of their parents.
According to the UN estimation, 6,88,000 Rohingyas entered Bangladesh since August 25, 2017 when the new influx, what the United Nations called the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency, began.
UNICEF estimated that about 60 per cent of the Rohingyas were children.
The new influx began after Myanmar security forces responded to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s reported attacks on August 25 launching a violence that the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing.
Officials estimated that the new influx already took to 11.07 lakh the number of Myanmar people living in Bangladesh.
