By UN News Centre
3 October 2017 –
With over half a million Rohingya refugees having fled their homes in Myanmar
since violence erupted in late August, the top United Nations humanitarian
official has underscored that the solution to the crisis needs to be found
within Myanmar.
“The root causes of
this crisis, as you know, are in Myanmar and the solutions need to be found in
Myanmar,” Mark Lowcock, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, told journalists
at a news conference in Cox’s Bazar, where many of those fled are taking
refuge.
Noting that relief
operations are gathering momentum, he informed the media that over the past six
weeks, aid agencies have delivered more than nine million food rations,
provided more than 300,000 with water and sanitation support, inoculated more
than 100,000 children and provided some 50,000 with counselling and
psycho-social support.
However, the sheer
numbers of those in need mean that much more has to be done.
“The conditions in
the camps are terrible. We need to do a lot more to scale up beyond what we
have done so far,” added Mr. Lowcock, urging the international community to
scale up their support.
VIDEO: In
Bangladesh, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock, highlights ongoing efforts to
deliver aid to the Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar and calls for
international support to ramp up the operations. https://youtu.be/z7joZ231mtg
He also announced
that, as the manager of the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), he today
allocated an additional $12 million to relief efforts and enable humanitarian
partners kick-start life-saving critical health care, access to clean water and
sanitation and camp management in the new sites.
These funds follow a
previous CERF allocation of $7 million, bringing the total CERF support to $19
million.
According to the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of
Rohingya refugees who have fled into Bangladesh from Myanmar has now reached
509,000.
UN agencies,
including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the
International Organization for Migration (IOM), humanitarian partners, together
with the Bangladeshi Government have been working alleviate the plight of those
uprooted from their homes as well as supporting the host community cope with
the scale of the influx.
Yesterday, a diarrhoea
treatment centre was opened at the Kutupalong Refugee Camp, where refugees who
have been living since 1992 have taken in thousands of newcomers. By the end of
this week, there will be a total of 80 beds at the centres in three locations,
with two more centres planned to open next week.
UN agencies together
with the authorities have conducted an immunization campaign for children to
protect them against measles and have launched another one against cholera.
Similarly, UN humanitarian staff along with refugee volunteers, are visiting
refugee camps and informal settlements to identify people who may be sick but
have not sought treatment.
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