Arakan News Agency
The next monsoon rains could cause “massive deaths” as Bangladesh’s refugee camps are not designed to withstand storms, a panel of international advisers on Myanmar’s Rohingya issues said on Tuesday.
Human rights groups say some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Arakan province in Myanmar since August and most of them live in squalid plastic and bamboo camps in Cox’s Bazaar.
“We are currently in a race against time,” Coptsak Chutikul, secretary of the committee, told a news conference in Singapore. For us monsoon rains are coming. Camps with about a million people are not designed to carry them. “
“There will be huge numbers of deaths if all parties do not move to a sort of understanding about repatriation and aid,” he said.
Due to an adjournment of an agreement between the two neighboring countries on the repatriation of refugees, Bangladesh is racing to prepare new homes on a nearby island before the monsoon rains later this month.
More than 100,000 refugees will be threatened with landslides and floods during monsoon rains, according to a UNHCR illustration. Rainfall usually begins in April and peaks in July according to the Bangladesh Meteorological Authority.
