• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Friday, March 31, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home World

Race to Prevent Coronavirus ‘Nightmare’ in Rohingya Camps

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
05/18/20
in World
Rohingya refugees pray in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia, Bangladesh, Aug. 25, 2018

Over 740,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August 25, 2017. Photo: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Emergency teams raced Friday to prevent a coronavirus “nightmare” in the world’s largest refugee settlement after the first confirmed cases in a sprawling city of shacks housing nearly a million Rohingya.

There have long been warnings that the virus could race like wildfire through the cramped, sewage-soaked alleys of the network of 34 camps in the Cox’s Bazar district of south-east Bangladesh.

Most of the Muslim refugees have been there since around 750,000 fled a 2017 military offensive in neighboring Myanmar for which its government faces genocide charges at the U.N.’s top court.

Local health coordinator Abu Toha Bhuiyan initially said on Thursday that two refugees had tested positive. But the World Health Organization later said one case was a Rohingya man, and the other was a local man who lived near the camp and was being treated at a clinic inside the area.

This is what we have feared. We’re working overtime to establish the acute care facilities needed to cope with the threat #COVID19 poses to the worlds largest refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar. https://t.co/ScIv8L9MFH

— Mat Tinkler (@TinklerMat) May 14, 2020

WHO spokesman Catalin Bercaru told AFP that “rapid investigation teams” were being deployed and that the men’s contacts were being traced for quarantine and testing.

Local government official Mahfuzar Rahman said Friday an entire block in one camp, housing around 5,000 people, was shut off. “We have locked down the block, barring anyone from entering or leaving their homes,” he said.

He said they were also trying to “contact-trace” people the infected person had met and they would all be brought to isolation centers set up in the camps.

‘Thousands May Die’

In early April authorities had locked down the surrounding Cox’s Bazar district — home to 3.4 million people including the refugees — after a number of COVID-19 cases.

Bangladesh restricted traffic in and out of the camps and forced aid organizations to slash manpower by 80 percent. The country of 160 million people is under lockdown and had seen a rapid rise in coronavirus cases in recent days, with almost 19,000 and 300 deaths as of late Thursday.

A senior U.S. official who has visited the refugees said it was only a matter of time for the virus to reach.

Rohingya migrants in a boat adrift in the Andaman Sea
In August 2017, Myanmar’s military launched ‘area clearance operations’ against the Rohingya in its western Rakhine Province, driving nearly three-quarters of a million citizens into neighboring Bangladesh. Photo: AFP

“The refugee camp is incredibly crowded. The COVID virus will spread through there very rapidly,” said Sam Brownback, the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

Refugees International’s senior advocate for human rights, Daniel Sullivan, said the first COVID-19 case was the “realization of a nightmare scenario.”

Shamim Jahan from Save the Children said “we are looking at the very real prospect that thousands of people may die from COVID-19,” with “no intensive care beds” in the camps.

No Internet

Rights groups and others have also criticized Bangladesh for cutting internet access in the camps, which authorities say is to combat drug trafficking and other alleged criminal activities.

The lack of internet access has meant that information is hard to come by and that rumors abound, for example that coronavirus is always fatal.

“Open communication is critical to promoting hygiene awareness and tracking the spread of the disease,” Sullivan said.

“I have been calling on the Bangladeshi government to give internet access. It just seems to me ludicrous that they’re not,” Brownback told reporters in Washington.

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016
Refugees

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

by Staff Writer
March 8, 2023
A woman undergoing COVID test in China
Featured

Soaring Covid Cases Shine Light on China’s Healthcare Gap

by Staff Writer
January 11, 2023
Myanmar school attack
World

Myanmar School Attack Could Be ‘War Crime’: UN Probe

by Staff Writer
September 27, 2022
Toru Kubota
Media Freedom

Myanmar Junta Charges Japanese Journalist With Encouraging Dissent

by Staff Writer
August 4, 2022
Myanmar meeting
Democracy at Risk

HRW Slams Australia for ‘Unacceptable’ Myanmar Junta Meeting

by Staff Writer
April 8, 2022
European Medicines Agency
World

EU Watchdog Approves Second Covid Booster for Over 80s

by Staff Writer
April 6, 2022
Next Post
Medics and hospital workers tend to a COVID-19 patient outside the Montefiore Medical Center Moses Campus in the Bronx, New York City.

Hospital Industry Faces Reckoning: Where Do We Go From Here?

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in Beijing, China

Goodbye Beijing, Hello Globalization With a Conscience?

Please login to join discussion

Recommended

Damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado is seen on March 25, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi

After Tornado Kills 25, Mississippi Faces More Extreme Weather

March 26, 2023
Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
participants of an artificial intelligence conference

How AI Could Upend the World Even More Than Electricity or the Internet

March 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany

Eight Dead in Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness Hall in Germany

March 10, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

March 8, 2023

Opinion

Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives

‘Cringy Awards:’ Who Is the Most Embarrassing US House Representative?

February 13, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post