Donations to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis appeal are helping ensure families arriving at the camps have emergency food, clean drinking water, shelter and medicine. Hygiene kits have also been distributed to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases.
The crisis has been particularly devastating for the most vulnerable people in the Rohingya community, including women and children.
Two days after fleeing Myanmar, Mahfuza went into a traumatic labour. She gave birth to her seventh child – a little boy whom she named Salman – on the muddy floor of an abandoned house.
“I was really worried for my newborn son,” Mahfuza says. “I was scared we would get attacked and he might get killed.”
For Normeen, blood stained her clothes for five days during her period as she trudged through muddy terrain and rivers.
“I had nothing to use … we couldn’t bring anything,” Normeen says. “I was scared and ashamed.
“We are not used to being seen by men.”
When the family arrived at the makeshift refugee camps, hungry and exhausted, after seven days on the run, they received emergency food, water and hygiene kits containing sanitary protection, soap, clean underwear and disinfectant.
ChildFund and local partners are also now building emergency latrines within the camps, and safe spaces for women and girls where they can access emotional support from the trauma of their journey from Myanmar, as well as receive medical referrals for rape and gender based violence.
When Bangladesh opened its borders to the desperate people pouring in from Myanmar, no one predicted the scale of the crisis to come.
The influx of refugees that began in August has brought the total Rohingya population in Cox’s Bazar to more than 900,000. The situation has become the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world.
“We are really happy with all the things we’ve been given,” Normeen says. “We have really needed them because of what we have been through.”
For children in crisis, all that’s left is a daily battle for survival. They need clean water and food, shelter, hygiene and places where they can be safe. Donate today to support children in crisis.
