New York(September 25, 2017): The head of the UN refugee agency says Bangladesh needs “massive international assistance” to feed and shelter over 430,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar in recent weeks.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that there were “immense” challenges at the overflowing Rohingya refugee camps around Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh.
“I was struck by the incredible magnitude of their needs. They need everything, they need food, they need clean water, they need shelter, they need proper health care,” Grandi said after visiting the camps.
The UN official said there had been an “incredible outpouring of local generosity” but that now needed to be “beefed up by massive international assistance, financial and material.”
He said his office was providing “technical assistance” to help Bangladesh register the Rohingya. “That’s partly why I am here, to help the government organize that response.”
The scale of the influx, which the UN official called the “fastest and most urgent refugee emergency in the world,” had made it difficult to assess the needs quickly.
The latest figures by the UN show that 436,000 Rohingya had arrived from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since an outbreak of violence there a month ago.
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