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14,000 lone children among Rohingya refugees
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Rohingya Muslim refugee children run after a distribution of supplies at Balukhali refugee camp near the Bangladehsi district of Ukhia on September 19, 2017.
Aung San Suu Kyi said September 19 she does not fear global scrutiny over the Rohingya crisis, pledging to hold rights violators to account but refusing to blame the military for violence that has driven some 421,000 of the Muslim minority out of her country. In an address timed to pre-empt likely censure of Myanmar at the UN General Assembly in New York -- delivered entirely in English and aimed squarely at an international audience -- she called for patience and understanding of the unfurling crisis in her (AFP/Dominique Faget )
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early 14,000 children who have lost one or both parents are among the more than half a million Rohingya refugees who crossed in Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar, an official said Sunday.
The UN says 536,000 mainly Rohingya refugees have arrived from Myanmar's strife-torn Rakhine state since August 25, the majority of them children.
Bangladesh's social services department said 13,751 children without a parent or parents were identified in a survey of the crowded refugee camps along its border, where charities warn that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding.
"The majority of them said they lost one or both parents in the violence in Rakhine," Pritam Kumar Chowdhury, a department deputy director, told AFP.
"Others said they didn't know what happened to their parents, and they came to Bangladesh with relatives."
The UN has described the violence in Rakhine as a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, with displaced Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh describing whole villages being razed, gang rapes and massacres.
Those who survived and fled to Bangladesh include an estimated 320,000 children, one-third of whom are under five years of age.
Bangladesh is building the world's largest refugee camp -- a sprawling three thousand acre (1,200 hectare) settlement -- capable of housing 800,000-plus Rohingya.
Last month a junior minister asked that 200 acres be set aside in the camp for children's facilities.
Chowdhury said an orphanage would be built for unaccompanied minors, and those without a parent would be given extra assistance and familial support.
Aid agencies have warned there is a real concern that vulnerable children could be victims of abuse or trafficking.
