Survivors of the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh now face the onset of the monsoon and cyclone seasons. In the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar situated in southern Bangladesh, where temporary bamboo shelters blanket the steep hillsides and valleys vulnerable to floods, there has been a desperate effort to prepare for the coming monsoon season. There are grave concerns for the nearly one million refugees, Rohingya families and children that have already faced unbelievable atrocities, and now face this new deadly threat. Cox’s Bazar is one of the most frequently flooded regions of one of the most flood-prone countries on Earth. As well as increasing the risk of floods, Bangladesh’s geography is also susceptible to powerful and deadly storms. A cyclone in 1970 killed 300,000 people, another in 1991 left an estimated 10 million people homeless. Cyclone Sidr, in 2007, killed upwards of 10,000 people. The rickety structures won’t be able to withstand the storms and heavy rains of the imminent monsoon. And as dry earth turns to sludge in the coming weeks and months, there will be danger of both mudslides and disease. Some 200,000 people live in areas vulnerable to landslides and flooding, which if severe could destroy the camps’ fragile sanitation infrastructure and contaminate the water supply. For the thousands of children who’ve arrived malnourished with weakened immune systems, the spread of disease and waterborne illnesses could pose great danger. ‘I’ve been in some difficult places,’ says Martin Worth, UNICEF’s Head of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. ‘But this could get so much worse. What is already a dire humanitarian situation could become a catastrophe.’
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