TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results600,000 Rohingya children may flee to Bangladesh
Some 600,000 Rohingya children could flee to Bangladesh by the end of the year, a relief group said Sunday, highlighting the scale of the humanitarian crisis triggered by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
In crisis: Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's Rakhine state wait for aid at Kutupalong refugee camp in the Bangladeshi town of Teknaf on Sept.5. Nearly 125,000 mostly Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since a fresh upsurge of violence in Myanmar on Aug. 25, the United Nations said September 5, as fears grow of a humanitarian crisis in the overstretched camps. The UN said 123,600 had crossed the border in the past 11 days from Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakhine state.
(AFP/K M Asad)
S
ome 600,000 Rohingya children could flee to Bangladesh by the end of the year, a relief group said Sunday, highlighting the scale of the humanitarian crisis triggered by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
More than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have now arrived in Bangladesh from their Buddhist dominated homeland to escape violence that the United Nations says could be ethnic cleansing.
According to the UN, more than half of the refugees are children, and more than 1,100 have arrived alone after trekking mud roads and hills for days.
"That number could rise beyond one million by the end of the year if the influx continues, including about 600,000 children, according to UN agencies," Mark Pierce, the Bangladesh chief of Save the Children charity, said.
The UN has also said it was possible that all the estimated 1.1 million Rohingya could flee Rakhine.
Bangladesh and relief agencies are struggling to cope with new arrivals sheltering on roadsides, hills and open spaces close to existing camps around Cox's Bazar, which borders Myanmar.
Aid agencies have said thousands of Rohingya were half-starving and a major health emergency could break out.
Bangladesh has announced it will build 14,000 shelters for some 400,000 refugees but has said it was also readying a desolate island where many could be relocated.
Pierce said his group was particularly worried about the traumatised children and orphans who have arrived alone in Bangladesh.
"This is a real concern as these children are in an especially vulnerable position, being at increased risk of exploitation and abuse, as well as things like child trafficking,” he said.
"Some children have witnessed violence and killing. Some have been shot at, others have seen their homes set on fire. Some have reportedly watched their parents being killed," he said.
