COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) – Monsoon rains, relocations and extortion attempts are worsening the living situation in the Bangladeshi camps for Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar.
Several Rohingya camps in this coastal city are flooded from three days of unrelenting rains. People in the camps were being pelted with heavy rain Wednesday while desperately packing their meagre belongings into plastic sacks and bits of clothes and trying to find new shelter
The initial arrivals in the most recent exodus simply settled on whatever patch of land they could find, building shelters of bamboo sticks and plastic sheets.
But as their numbers soared to more than 420,000 in a matter of weeks, the local government has started moving them to newly allocated refugee camp areas. Many refused to move, terrified of being without shelter at all. But the rains washed away many shanties or made them uninhabitable.
So they’re moving again. Most of them are being sent to the new settlement of Balukhali in Cox’s Bazar.