Rohingya refugee camps in the southeastern Bangladesh town of Cox's Bazar risk being hit hard by a possible coronavirus outbreak if no immediate prevention and containment measures are taken, Oxfam Country Director in Bangladesh Dipankar Datta told Sputnik in an interview
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th May, 2020) Rohingya refugee camps in the southeastern Bangladesh town of Cox's Bazar risk being hit hard by a possible coronavirus outbreak if no immediate prevention and containment measures are taken, Oxfam Country Director in Bangladesh Dipankar Datta told Sputnik in an interview.
On Thursday, two first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in two of the Cox's Bazar camps. One was detected in Kutupalong, a camp housing an approximate 700,000 people, and the other one in a smaller camp named 1E.
"We are extremely worried about COVID-19 hitting the Cox's Bazar refugee camps, as nearly one million people are already experiencing a humanitarian crisis," Datta said.
A COVID-19 outbreak in refugee camps would "pose a massive threat" and "have serious implications for getting basic services" to residents who are already extremely vulnerable due to their life circumstances, he added.
"A serious outbreak could spread life fire if no immediate prevention and containment measures are rapidly put in place," Datta said.
In camps the way they are maintained at the moment, observing proper hygiene and social distancing is "extremely challenging, according to the Oxfam official. He cited, in particular, the factors of camps being overcrowded with 40,000 people crammed per square kilometer and sanitary facilities, such as water and toilet, being shared.
More than 700,000 people from the Muslim minority group of Rohingya had to flee their homes in Myanmar after the authorities there launched an unprecedented violence campaign against them in August 2017.
Most of Rohingya found refuge in neighboring Bangladesh, but the camps they are accommodated in, overwhelmingly in Cox's Bazar, are desperately underfunded and utterly decrepit.
