At a time when many wealthy nations are closing their borders to thousands of distressed refugees, Bangladesh has set an example for the world by opening its arms to the helpless Rohingya.
Despite being a small, natural disaster-prone and overcrowded country, Bangladesh has taken in over 700,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals since the state-run military began its brutal campaign in August last year.
Bangladesh’s efforts in receiving and accommodating this massive wave of refugees has been praised around the world.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke of the scale of Bangladesh’s sacrifice only last week, following his visit to the Rohingya camps alongside the World Bank Group president, Jim Yong Kim.
“Bangladesh opened its border - in a world where unfortunately many borders are still closed,” the UN secretary general said at a joint press conference in Dhaka with Kim.
“And Bangladesh has accepted to protect and to assist more than one million Rohingyas at the present moment (despite) being a developing country with many challenges in its own development process.
“And because of that, it’s the moment to appeal to the international community to express a much stronger solidarity, both with the Rohingya and with Bangladesh that is hosting them.”
On June 28, the World Bank announced nearly half-a-billion dollars in grant-based support to help Bangladesh to address the needs of Rohingya refugees in sectors such as health, education, water and sanitation, disaster risk management and social protection.
“Bangladesh has shown great leadership in this evolving humanitarian crisis by providing refuge for the Rohingya people,” Jim Yong Kim said.
“We are deeply moved by the suffering of the Rohingya people and stand ready to help them until they can return home in a safe, voluntary, and dignified manner.
“At the same time, we are also continuing to support the Bangladeshi people and the host communities, who have shown great generosity by welcoming these refugees.”
Kim said the grant will allow the World Bank Group, working in collaboration with the government of Canada, to support these efforts.
A million mouths to feed
More than 300,000 Rohingya people have been sheltered by Bangladesh for decades, having fled inhumane discrimination in their home country. They have been joined since last August by another 700,000 refugees, bringing the total to one million.
Just feeding this number of refugees each day costs almost $800,000, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
“The challenges are simply to provide food for so many people,” WFP Country Director in Bangladesh Christa Rader told the Dhaka Tribune.
“We only have three food commodities (and) people do not want to live for months or years on rice, pulses and oil, so we have to bring diversification.”
Rader said such diversification can be brought through the use of electronic vouchers.
“These are cards which are uploaded every month and contain about nine dollars – Tk750 per person, per month. A household can purchase from 19 food items in shops – so this we aim to work towards,” she said.
The government plays a significant role in managing the overall activities in the refugee camps, including food distribution.
While visiting the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar last September, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that Bangladesh will provide for the Rohingya refugees.
“If we can feed 160 million people, we can feed another two or five or seven hundred thousand people,” she said.
Monitoring for extremist recruitment in the camps
Apart from providing food and other essentials - such as medical treatment and medicines, water, and sanitation facilities - the Bangladesh government has taken necessary steps to monitor and control extremism and militancy in the Rohingya camps.
Cox’s Bazar Deputy Commissioner Md Kamal Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that the administration was alert and monitoring the camps closely.
“A number of detective agencies are working on the ground to monitor the overall law and order situation,” he said.
“Additional law enforcement members have been deployed there (and) are working closely to prevent the emergence of any kind of extremist ideology.
“According to our observations, so far there has been no sign of extremism among the refugees. We hope this situation will prevail.”
Cox’s Bazar Superintendent of Police AKM Iqbal Hossain said there are five police camps to monitor law and order situation in the refugee camps.
There are another 13 check posts around the region.
“Our intelligence monitoring continues at all times. Additional detectives from different parts of the country have been brought into Cox’s Bazar,” he said.