Rohingya camp fires - another update

 Greetings all, 

Lean-to's popping up on the scorched earth

When Rachel, the Country Director, and Phil went out on Wednesday to encourage the shelter staff in their hard work, we saw up close and personal the devastation wrought by the inferno! As mentioned earlier, our shelter team had already distributed some emergency shelter kits and the team was continuing the process. People immediately set up their small lean-to's so that they could begin to have a little bit of shelter from the elements. Hot season seems to be in full swing now, so the shade was really needed!

Here are the numbers, from International Organization of Migration (IOM), regarding how many households are affected (around 17,000 households from one fire!): 

Refugees returned immediately from where they had fled during the fire and reclaimed their spots on the sites of their burned down shelters. All were sifting through the ashes of their lives to see if they could find anything of value. Signs of resilience were quite evident. Some were clearing away rubble and cleaning up their little piece of land.  Some Rohingya had already set up tables to begin again their business of selling small items in order to support their families.  LPG gas bottles were being handed out so families could cook again. 

Google Earth view of the scorched earth where Medair
SHE team is working

In addition to the shelter kits other organizations responsible for the affected camps were distributing solar lights, water, and food. These few items really helped people to begin to reestablish themselves on the site of their home. 

One of the factors that enabled this immediate response is that sectors working in the refugee camp (whether they are shelter, health, nutrition, or food security) have prepositioned emergency supplies. Prepositioning emergency supplies is mandated due to the known vulnerability of this location in the case of monsoon flooding or cyclones. Thanks to this prepositioning, the day after the fire these supplies were being distributed to those in need because the supplies were already in the camps!

Transporting the kits to 8E - SE Asia style!

Medair is also going to be distributing Home Isolation Kits to households in 8E most likely tomorrow. As mentioned in the first update, we are also in the midst of a surge of COVID19 here in Bangladesh. As Rohingya have lost everything, including essential buckets, containers and other hygiene related supplies their vulnerabilty to COVID19 is increased. The kits will give them some basic cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and some face masks. 

Here are a couple of links to stories put out by Medair. One has a video in it of one of our SHE staff and Rachel: 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/medair_bangladesh-medair-responds-to-deadly-fire-activity-6781122778608214016-kXjh

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/medair_bangladesh-activity-6780896194735415296-QwVv

If you are interested in supporting these efforts in some way there are also links in these two articles to donate. But you can always go on medair.org to make donations. Right now there is a link on the home page with more information on the fire (where you can also donate). 

Praise for:

1. 

   The kits being loaded into the distribution point out
   of which we took the prepositioned emergency 
   shelter kits

   Preparedness (a big part of humanitarian aid work) which allowed needed supplies to get to those needing them in short order
2. The hard work of many teams (including the Medair SHE team in particular) responding to the need even during this weekend. 
3. Successful surgery on Christine's mom's brain tumor.

Prayers for: 

1. CiC's (Camp-in-Charge) to give us the permission to start our kit distribution tomorrow - it looks like we have it, but these things can change quickly
2. resilience and comfort for those who have lost so much
3. the next steps to get the Rohingya into more permanent housing - rain is forecasted for Tuesday!
4. the reestablishment of paperwork for those whose paperwork went up in smoke
5. Christine's mom - thanks for all the prayers and expressions of solidarity with the Lindell family!