Giving Compass' Take:

• The United Nations Foundation along with other partners are preparing a variety of strategies to address the monsoon season that will affect the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar area on sloped hills and makeshift shelters. 

• What else needs to happen to protect the Rohingya refugees? 

• Take a look into the Cox's Bazar refugee camp, from the perspective of a Doctors Without Borders participant. 


After fleeing oppression and violence in Myanmar, nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox Bazar district now face another life-threatening challenge: monsoon season. Most of Bangladesh’s rainfall – 80% – occurs during monsoon season, which officially began in June and lasts until October. This year, incoming downpours present countless dangers to the men, women, and children settled among crowded, makeshift shelters across sharply sloped hills.

Here are six key ways the UN is taking action to protect Rohingya refugees this monsoon season – and why your help matters:

  1. Relocating to Safer Ground: One key output is the preparation of a 12-acre plot on stable ground for shelters and other key services for nearly 500 families currently living on sandy hillsides on some of the most at-risk parts of the site.
  2. Strengthening Shelters: For those who cannot be immediately relocated, UN agencies are working to distribute shelter upgrade kits, containing ropes, bamboo, tarpaulin, and tools, to more than 120,000 households.
  3. Dredging and Renovating Canals: As part of the Joint Maintenance Engineering Project, UN agencies are dredging and renovating over nine kilometers of abandoned canals in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya sub-district to prevent flooding and allow water runoff during heavy rains.
  4. Promoting the Health of Girls and Women: Since the Rohingya refugee crisis began, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has established reproductive health clinics and safe spaces in the camps of Cox’s Bazar to address the health needs of women and girls, including providing essential antenatal care to more than 72,000 women.
  5. Minimizing Hunger: WFP is expanding its e-voucher program to cover all existing refugees and the influx of new refugees.
  6. Minimizing Hunger: The World Health Organization (WHO) and UN partners are enacting disaster-response plans to ensure health services: relocating health facilities vulnerable to flooding, establishing rehydration points, continuing vital vaccine campaigns, and more.

Read the full article about protecting the Rohingya from monsoon season by  Chandler Green at United Nations Foundation