Humanitarian Response for Rohingya Refugees

This project aims to provide timely lifesaving assistance and protection, as well as to improve the living conditions and build resilience of Rohingya refugees and affected host communities in Bangladesh. The project contributes to the survival and the protection against risks of 24,320 beneficiaries by providing lifesaving medical care, segregated WASH facilities, food distribution as well as educational support through play and sports programmes for traumatized children and the provision of livelihood enhancement skills training for female refugees in Kutapalong camp and host communities in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char refugee camp.

Due to the humanitarian emergency situation, the health of the Rohingyas is at risk and they urgently need regular health services. In this context, the project aims to provide health services, regular medication and follow-ups to the vulnerable Rohingya refugees as well as to the host community people of all ages and sexes, including pregnant women and persons with disabilities, to ensure a healthy life of the community. The project has further offered needs-based protection assistance and awareness raising activities to the beneficiaries and is thereby contributing to improving the living conditions as well as to building resilience of Rohingya refugees and affected host communities in Bangladesh.

Project Background: 

Violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, which began in August 2017, has driven about 727,219 Rohingya across the border into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Together with previously displaced people, this took the total number of Rohingya in Bangladesh to over 1.1 million. The majority of these people now live in camps, in settlements and amongst the host community in Cox’s Bazar District. The speed and the scale of the influx have resulted in a critical humanitarian emergency. People have arrived in Bangladesh with empty hands and are now reliant on humanitarian assistance for food and other life-saving needs. In some of the sites, water and sanitation facilities are limited or of poor quality and due to the extreme high population density, there is an increased risk of the spread of COVID-19. Due to the influx of the Rohingya, approximately 1.2 million people in host communities have also been affected by the scarcity of basic needs provisions, as these host communities had already been considered economically vulnerable prior to the arrival of the Rohingya refugees.