Rohingya refugees have complained that Myanmar has been laying landmines across a section of its border with Bangladesh. Many Rohingyas are still entering into Bangladesh from Myanmar while escaping shootings and arson attacks by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist monks, source said. At least 6 Rohingya refugees have been reportedly killed by landmines in the last three weeks. Myanmar army is tactfully laying landmines in the forest line of the Bangladeshi border. Our Cox's Bazar correspondent visited nakhonchai of coxbazar border and spotted dead bodies of young men.
With thousands of Rohingya refugees streaming daily across the swampy border into Bangladesh, one hospital was struggling to treat dozens of men who had arrived with burn injuries, broken bones, bullet wounds.
Shazadi Begum 60 is going under treatment at Cox's Bazar's Sadar hospital. Shazadi Begum told The Daily Observer on Friday that Myanmar army entred her village and burned their houses. Cox's Bazar Sadar hospital sources said that at least 20 percent of her body was burned.
The UN Refugee Agency is stepping up delivery of life-saving aid to desperate people camped out near two official refugee camps in south-eastern Bangladesh.
UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said at a press briefing in Geneva on Friday that, "We are speeding up the distribution of plastic sheeting amng as many people as possible , at least to ensure minimal protection from monsoon rains and winds,"
UNHCR site planners are on the scene to try to help organise a 2,000-acre (800-hectare) site allocated for the newly arrived refugees.
Known as the Kutupalong extension, the new site is next to Kutupalong camp, which houses Rohingya refugees who arrived over several decades. It is managed by the government and supported by UNHCR.
"Volunteers and contractors are helping newly arriving refugees moving into emergency shelter, but it is vital that our site planners lay out the new Kutupalong extension in an orderly way to adequately provide sanitation and ensure structures are erected on higher ground not prone to floods."
Many of the estimated 420,000 refugees who have arrived in Bangladesh over the last three and half weeks have been taken in by families inside two official camps, Kutupalong and Nayapara, or are living in schools and other public buildings converted into communal shelters.
It is considered as a priority to get them - as well as many others in informal settlements - into Kutupalong extension, where UNHCR can support the government and partners in protecting and assisting them.
Once they move, the schools can also re-open for education for locals and refugees.
"We are working with authorities to have an access road built to make it easier to deliver tents, sheeting and essential relief items directly to people where they already are," Andrej said.
Awami League will set up 600 latrines for Rohingyas refugees in Cox's Bazar. Enamul Haque Shamim, an organising secretary for the ruling party, made the announcement after distributing relief at the refugee camps on Friday.
According to Cox's Bazaar DC the army will get involved in distributing relief materials.
"The latrines will be set up within next week," he said. "Besides that, the party will make sure each camp has two doctors and a steady supply of medicine."
The leaders and activists of the party were working to help the refugees as ordered by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, he said.
