Rohingya Refugee Crisis
Since late August 2017, over 914,998 Rohingya refugees fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar, where they are a stateless Muslim minority. The vast majority of Rohingya refugees reaching Bangladesh are women and children, including newborn babies. Many others are elderly people requiring additional aid and protection.
They have walked for days through jungles and mountains, or brave dangerous sea voyages across the Bay of Bengal. As they arrive exhausted, hungry, sick and in need of protection, UNHCR has been on the ground in Bangladesh leading the emergency response efforts by distributing urgently-needed supplies such as tents, blankets, sleeping mats and solar lamps.
Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh since August 2017
%
refugees in Bangladesh are under the age of 17
%
funding gap (as of Feb. 2020)
What is UNHCR doing to help Rohingya refugees?
UNHCR is leading the emergency response in two camps for Rohingya refugees, Kutupalong and Nayapara, where we are providing life-saving assistance and protection to the refugees, in close collaboration with partners and authorities.
We are providing emergency shelter in many forms and wherever available, ranging from plastic sheeting to temporary bamboo sheds to common buildings, such as schools, being used as temporary shelters.
By mid-October, UNHCR had airlifted to Bangladesh some 700 metric tonnes of life-saving aid, including tents, plastic sheets, blankets, mosquito nets, kitchen sets and jerry cans. Furthers airlifts are planned.
Together with our partners, we are also helping the government to develop Kutupalong Extension, a new site near the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp. This includes funding a road to facilitate construction and refugee access, supporting site planning, building latrines and wells, improving the water and sanitation facilities and distributing shelter materials.
We continue to identify the most vulnerable new arrivals, such as unaccompanied children, pregnant women, the elderly and the disabled. Our protection staff are working to establish child-friendly spaces and to prevent sexual and gender-based violence.
View an interactive map of the Rohingya crisis on UNHCR’s global site.
"Almost 600,000 people have fled, that's the equivalent of half of Calgary."
UNHCR Canada Representative Jean-Nicolas Beuze joined the National Observer to speak about the scale of the Rohingya crisis.
Send urgent relief to Rohingya refugee families in need
UNHCR urgently needs 238.8 million USD to respond to massive humanitarian needs in Bangladesh in 2018. Much more needs to be done to meet the acute needs of children, women and men fleeing conflict.
LEARN MORE
Latest Rohingya News
We give you exclusive access to breaking news and information from some of the most remote and hard-to-reach places on Earth.
Emergency Relief
UNHCR can deploy humanitarian aid and expert response teams within 72 hours of a large-scale emergency to jump-start relief and protection assistance for more than 600,000 newly displaced people.
Yemen Crisis
Yemen is currently the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Worsening violence is resulting in widespread casualties and massive displacement.