More than 30,000 Rohingya refugees crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar fleeing shootings and arson attacks by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist monks in the last 48 hours, source said.
They are now staying under the open sky at Anjuman Para embankment on the Bangladesh side.Maj Asiqur Rahman, officer of 34 BGB, told the daily Observer that over 15,000 Rohingya refugees crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar in the last 2 days, but he failed to provide the actual number of the newly-arrived Rohingya refugees.
Noor Hossian, Chairman of Sabrang Union, said that at least 1,000 boatmen and about 200 middlemen were involved in ferrying the Rohingya refugees across the Naf river from Myanmar. Each boat earns Tk 100,000 per trip, the Chairman said.
Moin Uddin, OC Teknaf Model Police Station, said that police arrested some 100 boatmen and 70 middlemen and set fire to 27 boats for their involvement in carrying Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
Meanwhile, on Monday, an overcrowded boat carrying refugees capsized in the Bay of Bengal near a Bangladeshi fishing village, killing 12 people, including six children. With Monday's boat capsize, at least 184 Rohingyas have drowned while trying to reach Bangladesh.
From 10,000 to 15,000 Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh through the Anjuman Para border crossing point in Ukhiya district in the country's south-east since Sunday night, UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said during a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
"We are gravely concerned about humanitarian conditions in Bangladesh, where thousands of new arrivals are stranded near the border," Andrej Mahecic told a Geneva news briefing.
Some 582,000 Rohingyas are now known to have fled since violence erupted on August 25 in northern Rakhine State, where they lack access to food and healthcare, UN officials said.
Many say they had initially chosen to remain in their homes in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State despite repeated threats to either leave or risk being killed. They finally fled when their villages were set on fire.
The refugees UNHCR staff spoke to on Monday described walking for around a week to reach the Bangladesh border. Some crossed into on Sunday night, others came in throughout Monday in the heat and rain.
As of this morning, they are still squatting in the paddy fields of Anjuman Para village in Bangladesh. They are waiting for permission to move away from the border, where the sound of gunfire continues to be heard every night from the Myanmar side, the spokesperson said.
UNHCR and our partners, the Bangladesh Red Crescent and Action against Hunger, are delivering food and water to the stranded refugees, among them children, women and the elderly who are dehydrated and hungry from the long journey. Our staff are working with Médecins Sans Frontires to identifying the sick for treatment.
UNHCR is advocating with the Bangladesh authorities to urgently admit these refugees fleeing violence and increasingly-difficult conditions back home. Every minute counts given the fragile condition they are arriving in.
As part of our response to the new influx, UNHCR is working with the government and other partners to complete a new transit centre in Kutupalong with a capacity of 1,250. Preparations are also underway to host new arrivals in the schools in Kutupalong camp.
At the same time, UNHCR is collaborating to accelerate the opening up of the new Kutupalong extension site to avoid adding more pressure to already congested areas of the camp.
Jens Laerke, spokesman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that Rohingya in Rakhine now faced a "desperate choice whether to stay or go", not only due to the violence but also humanitarian needs.
"The lack of food, lack of health care and so on. So that is certainly a factor that is strongly in play as of now," he said.
Nearly 60 per cent of the 582,000 refugees who have fled Myanmar since August 25 are children - and thousands more are crossing each week, UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said.
UNICEF, which is providing clean water every day to 40,000 people in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, and has installed thousands of toilets, may have to stop operations by the end of November unless further funds are received, she said.
A UN inter-agency appeal of $434 million for Rohingya in Bangladesh and host communities is only 24 per cent funded, OCHA's Laerke said.
