It is one of the most densely populated and at the same time the poorest countries in the world. There are more than one thousand inhabitants here per one square kilometer. The country’s population is almost 150 million. In the neighboring Myanmar, since mid-2017, thousands of the Rohingya people have lost their lives, their villages have been burned down, and the survivors approached the border with Bangladesh. Within several months, more than 750 refugees settled in the border area.
22.03.2021
We just received dramatic news from Bangladesh: around 3:30 pm local time, a fire broke out in the center of Camp 9, the part of the camp where our project has been running for 2 years. The daycare center where we provided aid, education and food to several dozen children a day has been reduced to ashes. We are likely the only Polish organization involved here, a place marked by the daily suffering of thousands of people. What’s most important, we were able to determine that all patients and staff members were evacuated to a safe place and left unharmed.
Camp 9, home to some 40-60,000 Rohingyas, is still burning. It’s too early to say what caused the fire but initial reports point to a gas cylinder explosion. We’re not sure whether there were any victims among residents of this part of the camp but the scale of destruction is enormous.
The neighboring Médecins Sans Frontières facility and many shacks – which were supposed to be temporary solutions yet ended up serving as many families’ only shelter for years – have also burned to the ground.
We continue to stay in touch with the team on the ground and will keep you updated on any developments as well as our possible responses to this unfathomable tragedy as we plan our next steps. In the meantime, we ask that you send positive thoughts to the victims, who have been robbed of the very little they had.
Just this morning we received pictures from our project showing children proud of their crops. One of the many activities we offer are workshops on how to grow a vegetable garden. The children would then share their harvest with their parents. Not in our worst nightmares could we have anticipated that our facility would literally disappear off the face of the earth within a matter of minutes.
29.06.2023
Fires and floods are two elements they have to live with, but they are being killed by most of the world looking the other way. Neither Bangladesh nor Myanmar wants to remember the Rohingya people. Driven by machetes and fire from their own homes, they are trying to build a new one among a hostile […]
26.05.2023
Their own backs protected their children from the flames and from scenes straight out of their worst nightmares. In the Rohingya camp, it is hard to find a mother whose burns would not betray the kind of hell she and her children literally went through. A hell from which she carried them out in her […]
06.03.2023
First there is a loud cracking sound. Later there is smoke. Finally, flames shoot up. You can hear them roaring. The ground trembles. Yesterday afternoon, the world’s largest refugee camp went up in flames again. For the Rohingya people, the flames are their biggest nightmare. In August 2017, Burmese generals carried out an ethnic cleansing […]
