Giving Compass' Take:

• With no solid shelter or evacuation plan, Rohingyan refugees face Bangladesh's storm season unprepared.  

• How can philanthropy help to solve this problem in the long-term through relocation and solid housing for refugees? How can refugee situations be better managed to avoid crises like this? 

• Learn how the U.S. can help resolve the Rohingya crisis.


Here in the Rohingya refugee camps, where flimsy shelters sprawl over steep hillsides and floodplains, aid workers, and residents have been reinforcing bamboo tents, clearing land, building new roads and bridges, and storing emergency supplies ahead of the monsoon and cyclone season.

But with a severe shortage of space and no evacuation plan or storm shelters available for the vast majority of people, camp residents and humanitarian groups fear weeks of work may prove futile as the rains start to arrive and become heavier over the next few months.

Aid groups say slow government approval for key preparedness projects has impeded their work, and warn that a worst-case scenario could trigger “a massive loss of life” among the almost 900,000 Rohingya, including the more than 686,000 new refugees who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State last year.

Heavy rain and winds, commonly seen during the season, could wash away infrastructure like toilets, health clinics, and schools, cut off large parts of the camps from aid, and exacerbate the already problematic health situation.

Aidan Gromoll, site coordinator for DocMobile, which provides volunteer medics to clinics in the camps, warned that submerged and impassable roads and pathways could put refugees beyond the reach of aid.

"I don't know how we will reach them, how we will learn of their need," she told IRIN.

Read the full article about Rohingya camps and storm season by Kaamil Ahmed at IRIN.