Something close to 300 villages have burned to the ground. By some
estimates, 3,000 civilians have been killed. A few weeks ago, we were
talking about 400,000 refugees pouring into Bangladesh. Now, the number
is 600,000 Rohingya refugees. Roughly half the Rohingyas live in Burma, and those refugees include
300,000 children. Think about the type of trauma those children have
just experienced and the challenges they will have regaining a
foundation to thrive. Then there are those who are internally displaced
inside of Burma, who have been driven out of their villages but haven't
been able to make their way to Bangladesh. This is the challenge we
face. There is an area of Bangladesh called Cox's Bazar. That is where
these two main refugee camps are. International aid groups are working
to quickly get as many resources as they can into this area so that
people do not starve and so that medical wounds can be addressed. But
there is still a significant lack of food, a lack of clean water, and a
lack of sanitary bath and toilet facilities. That condition is ripe for
spreading disease--diseases like cholera. When I was home in Oregon, I met with a group of Rohingya refugees
who came and settled in Oregon. As we can imagine, they have a very
personal connection to what is happening. Some of them have distant
relatives still there.
Keywords matched
refugee refugees