UN: 607,000 Rohingya entered Bangladesh since Aug. 25
Warnings emerge of overcrowding, congestion in refugee camps
By Fatih Erel
GENEVA
Around 607,000 Rohingya Muslims have crossed from Myanmar to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, the UN said Tuesday.
"Although the number of new arrivals is now slowing, people continue to arrive in the makeshift settlements of Cox’s Bazar every day, bringing the total Rohingya population of the district to over 820,000," Joel Millman, spokesman for the UN’s International Agency for Migration (IOM) told a news conference at the UN in Geneva on Tuesday.
"The settlements are dangerously congested and overcrowded and the pressure on sources of clean drinking water and basic sanitation are enormous. Having walked for days without water and food, the refugees arrive to the settlements exhausted and thirsty. Many are ill," Millman said.
UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said four Rohingya refugees died on Tuesday morning in a new Bay of Bengal shipwreck when their boat capsized close to the southern Bangladesh shore.
The refugees are fleeing a military crackdown in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.
The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings – including those of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel.
In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
