Thousands of Rohingya refugees have been relocated after their camps at Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh were rattled by heavy monsoon rainfall claiming the life of one people. Weather experts have warned the rainfall is expected to continue.
According to BBC news reports, over 3,000 families at the camp have been affected, the UNICEF said. The IOM (International Organization for Migration) has stated it had relocated at least thousands of Rohingya Muslims refugees in some recent days.
The camps are home to more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees. Due to the heavy landslides, it claimed the life of at least one people, according to air officials.
A spokesperson for the IOM, George McLeod, told the BBC the Rohingya crisis was “worsening the already difficult conditions faced by the refugees who fled Myanmar in mid-2017″.
“We’ve seen hundreds of cases of people whose houses were simply swept away by landslides and many others who are threatened by vulnerable slopes. These people have had to be relocated either to emergency shelters or relatives’ houses,” he said.
In March, a United Nations human rights investigator on Myanmar has voiced deep concern over a Bangladesh’ plan to relocating around 23,000 Rohingya refugees to a remote island in April, stating that it may not be suitable and could also create a potential “new crisis”.
According to Bangladesh government, moving refugees to the “floating island” named Bhasan Char will ease chronic overcrowding at Cox’s Bazar’s refugee camps, currently holding about 730,000 Rohingya refugees.
The UN said some of the humanitarian groups have condemned the relocating plan of Bangladesh, stating the island was vulnerable to frequent cyclones.
Bangladesh’s disaster management ministry secretary Shah Kamal said the Bangladesh government was in ongoing talks with the UN agencies over the issues.