Bangladesh: Another Rohingya dies in refugee camp

DHAKA, Bangladesh

One more Rohingya refugee in the crammed camps of Bangladesh’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar has died of coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday.

With the latest fatality, the number of virus-linked deaths among the persecuted community in the South Asian country reached five, the office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner said.

“Until Monday we tested samples of 474 Rohingya, including 14 in the last 24 hours, and confirmed 46 positive cases and five deaths,” Dr. Abu Toha MR Bhuiyan of the commissioner's office told Anadolu Agency.

Meanwhile, as many as 32 Rohingya have recovered from the disease, including three in the last 24 hours.

Some 39 members of the community who contracted the virus were quarantined in isolation centers within the camps, the RRRC said.

A total of 2,088 virus cases, including 30 virus-related deaths have been registered in Cox's Bazar, home to more than a million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Bangladesh, which has a population of over 165 million, has recorded 117,207 infections, including 1,545 deaths to date, according to the Health Ministry, making it the 17th worst-hit nation just behind Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Forty-three new deaths, and 3,412 cases were registered on Tuesday.

A lockdown was partly eased on May 31 citing economic interests and people's needs.

Due to an upsurge in cases, authorities have now divided the country into three zones – red are high-risk areas, yellow moderate, and green low-risk.