There are thousands of Rohingya orphans in the camps,
with nobody to take care of them
Dhaka Tribune
 |
A Rohingya refugee girl collects rain water at a
makeshift camp in Cox's Bazar, BD. Reuters
|
A three-year-old boy with messy short hair was looking
for a familiar face in the crowd of people at a relief centre in Kutupalong
refugee camp.
Mohammad Shafiq was sitting under a temporary shed. When
asked who he was with, a woman, Noor Ayesha came forward and said she found
Shafiq by the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf highway standing alone and crying.
“I noticed Shafiq, crying alone by the road when I was resting
after a long walk to come here. Initially I assumed that his relatives are
somewhere around here but later I found that he was there by himself. He told
me his name but he does not know the name of his parents or his native
village,” said Ayesha.
“He only said his parents were taken away and they did
not come back. He does not have any idea what happened to them. He remains
quiet all the time and stares at people’s faces. May be he is looking for a
known face,” she added.
Ayesha found Shafiq two days after her arrival at
Kutupalong in September. Shafiq has been since been staying with Ayesha’s
family along with her five children.
She said: I cannot look after Shafiq indefinitely. I hope
someone will come and take his responsibility.”
Cox’s Bazar Social Welfare Office Deputy Director Pritom
Kumar Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have identified 12,801
unaccompanied orphans among around 2.5 million children who recently arrived in
Bangladesh. We are working on building a separate camp to ensure their safety.”
Department of Social Service of Bangladesh is working to
ensure safe shelter for the orphaned refugee children.
According to United Nations, up to 60% of the new
arrivals are children, and 30% are children under five years old, 7% are
infants under one year old, and 5% refugee households are headed by children.
Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch’s Emergencies
director and an expert in humanitarian crises told the Dhaka Tribune that
refugee orphan and unaccompanied children are in more vulnerable condition.
“The orphaned refugee children need family support within
the chaotic situation of the camps. They do not have anyone to talk to about
what they have gone through. And they do not even have any support for their
daily needs,” said Peter Bouckaert.
Bouckaert suggested that these children need counselling
and access to school in order to return to a normal life in the shelter.
UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said: “This is
both a humanitarian and a strategic issue. If these children grow up with the
memories of sufferings they are more likely to be traumatised for a longer
period in their lives.”
Over the past 47 days, 536,000 people have fled Myanmar
and arrived in Cox’s Bazar, according to an IOM report.
Follow my twitter to read breaking news of
Rohingya’s updates: https://twitter.com/mir_sidiquee
Visit here to read breaking news of
persecuted Rohingyas: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MirAhmedABSiddiquee