Bangladesh: Rains in Cox Bazar bring miseries to Rohingyas

The Rohingyas, living in refugee camps in Bangladesh's Cox Bazar, has been suffering miseries due to heavy rains, pouring over the last four days.

According to the Met office, in the last 24 hours, 258 millimetres of rain was recorded in Teknaf. It also forecast heavy showers for the next three days.

The makeshift shelters in areas like Kutupalong, Balukhali and Thyangkhali have gone under knee-to-waist deep water. The refugees in these camps are also facing a shortage of dry food.

"It has been raining heavily since Saturday ... We cannot even cook as all the firewood got wet. Many shelters here are inundated. Most of the latrines are washed away. We now have no other option but to respond to the call of nature out in the open," The Daily Star quoted Mohammad Noor, a refugee at Kutupalong camp as saying.

At least five Rohingyas, including three women, were injured in a landslide in Shafiullah Kata camp in Ukhia on Wednesday.

The head of Brac Humanitarian Crisis Management Programme in Cox's Bazar, Mohammed Abdus Salam, said at least 300 refugee shelters were damaged in 16 locations due to Wednesday's rain alone in Ukhia and Teknaf.

More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees are languishing in Bangladeshi refugee camps, after fleeing a brutal Myanmar army campaign launched in August last year.

The United Nations had said the scorched-earth operation, which had left hundreds of villages burned to ash in Myanmar's Rakhine state, amounted to 'ethnic cleansing'.