EMERGENCY UPDATE:
The Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, have recorded their first cases of coronavirus. Two people tested positive; one living in the surrounding host community and another in the camps. Close to 2,000 refugees have been forced to isolate due to fears the disease could quickly spread.
On top of this, Cyclone Amphan has torn through the Bay of Bengal and destroyed homes across India, Bangladesh and in the Rohingya refugee camps. As communities take shelter in crowded evacuation centres, the risk of the disease spreading is high.
A health emergency is on the horizon for this community. UNICEF urgently needs to scale up our response to keep children and their families safe. We must prevent the spread of this deadly disease.
Please consider making a donation to support children in urgent need.
Over a million Rohingya children have fled from violence in Myanmar only to face a whole new crisis in Bangladesh.
The vulnerable status of these children is heightened by extreme weather conditions with the approaching cyclone and monsoon season and now the looming threat of disease, as coronavirus cases increase throughout the world. UNICEF is on the ground ensuring children and their families have access to safe water and sanitation, and important prevention & risk information to prepare for this public health emergency.
The Rohingya community are a stateless Muslim minority who have faced discrimination, exclusion and poverty in Myanmar for decades.
Mass killings and sexual violence have sparked a refugee crisis for over a million Rohingya children who have been forced to make the gruelling journey to Bangladesh. These children endured chronic conditons before they fled Myanmar, facing a dire existence in Bangladesh. They’re sick, hungry and struggling every day in the over crowded refugee camps.
Monsoons threaten to flood low-lying areas of the camps and wash raw sewage into family homes and water supplies. These are nightmare conditions for an outbreak of disease like coronavirus, which can spread through a crowded community with deadly speed.
Refugee children are facing the double emergency of displacement and a global pandemic. We won’t let them face it alone.
Your emergency donation can give Rohingya children:
- Safe water, sanitation and hygiene supplies to stop the spread of disease,
- Access to emergency health care, medicine and immunisations,
- Sachets of therapeutic food - a peanut paste specially formulated with the micronutrients children need to survive malnutrition.