Rohingya refugee camps are under imminent threat, unless urgent funding is secured in the next six weeks, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has warned.
“Without new funding, the lives of tens of thousands of people who flooded into the camps in southern Bangladesh to flee violence in Myanmar triggered in August last year will be put at risk,” IOM's spokesperson Joel Millman told a press briefing in Geneva on Friday.
The migration agency figures showed that almost a million Rohingya refugees are currently living under tarpaulins in Cox's Bazar district, on steep, sandy slopes denuded of vegetation, reports Xinhua.
At least 120,000 have been identified as being at the high risk from floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains, of these 25,000 have been identified as at the highest risk from landslides, the IOM said.
Hundreds of thousands of others will also be at risk if roads become impassible and vital aid supplies and medical services cannot get through, it added.
Tarpaulin stocks are also rapidly running out and IOM, which oversees shelter distribution in the camps, reports that by mid-May supplies will fall below critical levels.
Other IOM vital services in the Rohingya camps which work by aid agencies at serious risk unless more financial support is forthcoming include water, sanitation and hygiene activities.
The IOM, which has appealed for 182 million US dollars to provide aid in Cox's Bazar through December 2018, said it is currently facing a funding shortfall of almost 151 million dollars.
