Since August 25, more than 500,000 people have crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing violence in the northern areas of Rakhine State, Myanmar. They are now living in large camps and makeshift settlements in Cox’s Bazar and are in desperate need of basic necessities. The Red Cross and Red Crescent movement is providing food, water, health care, sanitation and shelter, in support of the work by the Bangladesh Red Crescent.
The Canadian Red Cross has sent aid workers to provide support to the Norwegian and Finnish Red Cross as they set up a field hospital. Mobile medical teams from the Japanese Red Cross and the Qatar Red Crescent are also working alongside Bangladesh Red Crescent medics and volunteers in the camps and makeshift settlements to provide basic health care. More than 4,000 people have been treated by Red Cross Red Crescent medical teams. The IFRC and Bangladesh Red Crescent are also providing psychosocial support and setting up safe spaces for children and women in camps.
Canadian Red Cross communications aid worker Angela Hill shares photos of some of the people impacted by this crisis, one of the largest and most complex in the region in decades.
A Bangladesh Red Crescent Society volunteer looks across Hakimpara Camp. Conditions in the camps and makeshift settlements are extremely harsh.
A Bangladesh Red Crescent Society volunteer helps a woman with eye drops at a Japanese Red Cross mobile clinic in Hakimpara Camp in Bangladesh.
People carry boxes with toiletries back to their shelters in the Hakimpara camp in Bangladesh. These kits are distributed by the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.
A view across Hakimpara camp in Bangladesh. Conditions are extremely harsh with people living on steep, cramped hillsides under pieces of cheap plastic sheeting.
A Bangladesh Red Crescent Society volunteer talks to a woman about the medication she is receiving from a Japanese Red Cross mobile clinic in Hakimpara Camp in Bangladesh.
A woman holds her baby while waiting at a Japanese Red Cross Mobile clinic at Hakimpara Camp in Bangladesh. The two-month-baby has pneumonia and requires hospitalization.
Photo credit: Angela Hill/IFRC
Canadian Red Cross personnel were deployed to Bangladesh thanks to funding from the Government of Canada.