Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Rakhine state is historically known to be the home of Muslim population who in a large part identify as Rohinya. They have suffered legal and social discrimination and they have had historical long-standing tensions with the Buddhist Rakhine community. The violence, occasioned by inter-ethnic clashes, that was experienced in Myanmar’s Rakhine state since the August of 2017 has seen exponential number of refugees flee into Bangladesh, thereby getting exposed to terrible suffering and squalid living conditions in the refugee camps. According to the UN CERF, (2018), there were an estimated 1.2 million refugees hosted in Bangladesh which included the new refugees, the old refugees who had already migrated into the region and the affected host communities urgently needed assistance as they were in distress. Though Bangladesh, being an Islamic nation and its geographical location makes it an obvious option for the Muslim Rohingya refugees, there are other countries that they have migrated into or made attempt to migrate into. It is estimated that on 2015,there were 25,000 Rohingya refugees who attempted to reach Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Sadly, most of these died after being abandoned in the open sea without any supplies by the human traffickers (Meixler E., 2018).

There have been various bodies and countries that have come up to extend the much need help to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Since 20007, there have been more than 50 million Euros allocated to this refugee case with a whole 18.7 million Euros being allocated in 2017 only due to the influx in the refugee numbers. The amounts are targeted to improving basic health care, water supply, sanitation, shelter for the refugees, nutrition and psychological support for them. If the animosity between these two ethnic groups does not come to an end, there is likelihood of having more refugees and the already stretched Bangladesh refugee camps will not be able to accommodate them hence another inevitable humanitarian crisis within the refugee camps will emerge.

References

Meixler E., (2018). A Boat Carrying 56 Rohingya Refugees Made a Stop in Southern Thailand. Retrieved April 29, 2018 from http://time.com/5224265/rohingya-refugees-boat-thailand/

UN CERF, (2018). Rohinya Refugee Crisis. Retrieved April 29, 2018 from https://cerf.un.org/sites/default/files/resources/cerf_if_rohingya_20171019_en.pdf