By KRISTEN GELINEAU
(AP)
For Mustawkima, a
Rohingya woman who fled Myanmar for the refugee camps of neighboring
Bangladesh, there is no other option.
The bamboo shelter
on the crumbling hillside will be Mustawkima's third attempt at finding a home
in the camps. She has had to do everything on her own; Her husband was killed
when the military stormed their village in August 2017.
UKHIYA, Bangladesh
– The hill on which the young woman's
shelter is being built is so unstable that the earth crumbles under your feet.
The threat of landslides is so dire that her neighbors have evacuated. Though living
here could spell doom as the monsoon rains fall, she will live here anyway.
Hers is a dilemma
repeated over and over for many of the 900,000 Rohingya refugees living in
ramshackle huts across this unsteady landscape: With the long-dreaded monsoon
season now upon them, they have run out of places to run.
For months,
officials raced to relocate the most at-risk families to safer areas that had
been bulldozed flat, but there simply isn't enough available land. Most
refugees believe it is too dangerous to return to Myanmar, where the military
launched a brutal campaign of violence against the minority Rohingya Muslims
last year. And so, as the rains begin to flood parts of the camps, many
Rohingya find themselves trapped — by geography, by poverty and by fear.
Mustawkima, who like
some Rohingya uses only one name, abandoned her first shelter when the soil
washed away. With five children under the age of 8, she wanted her new home to
be close to relatives living at the base of the hill, so she erected a flimsy
tarp halfway up. But when the rains began in June, the water quickly poured in,
transforming her dirt floor into a muddy mess.
Frightened, she sold
off some of her donated rations of rice, lentils and oil so she could hire men
to build her a sturdier shelter in the same spot. The bamboo and sandbags were
donated by aid agencies. She fears there isn't enough material, but she has no
money to buy extra bamboo.
Families living in
five shelters on the hill recently evacuated, she says. She can only hope that
her relatives will protect her and her children when the worst of the rains
arrive.
The most intense
rains are expected over the next few months, though heavy downpours began
pummeling the camps in June. There have already been more than 160 landslides,
30 people injured and one toddler killed, according to the Inter Sector
Coordination Group, or ISCG, which oversees the aid agencies in the camps.
"Within 24 hours
of the first rains falling, we were seeing small landslides and we were seeing
flooding everywhere," says Daphnee Cook, a spokeswoman for Save the
Children. "I've been here for seven months and I was appalled at how
quickly things started to fall apart."
The ferocity of the
rains and the swiftness with which they can wreak havoc is stunning. On a
recent day, it took just minutes for a downpour to transform the face of
another hill into a waterfall, with torrents of muddy water cascading down dirt
steps.
Beyond the
landslides and flooding, there are worries about waterborne diseases like
cholera. Some of the latrines are piled high with fly-riddled excrement, which
seeps out the sides during downpours. Water pumps are generally just a few
meters away — worse, some are located downhill.
Aid workers have
cleaned out thousands of latrines. Children are receiving identity bracelets in
case they are separated from parents in the flooding. Families have received
extra materials to fortify their shelters. Trenches have been dug to try and
redirect floodwaters.
Ultimately, though,
the topography of the camps is the biggest problem. The trees that once covered
the hills have been cut down to make room for shelters, and the roots dug up
for firewood. That process has dramatically loosened the soil, which the rains
turn into heavy mud that slips down the hillsides, burying anything in its
path.
The jagged scar on
Mohamed Alom's head is a grim reminder of the dangers of those landslides. The
27-year-old was asleep in his shelter last month when a torrent of mud crashed
through the plastic wall next to him. A tree root slammed into his head,
slicing open his skin. His agonized screams awakened his wife and two young
children, who rushed him to a doctor.