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Camp life: MSF

Bangladesh

Seven years on from fleeing targeted violence in Myanmar, Rohingya people are still living in dire conditions in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh.

Around 1 million Rohingya refugees are living in Cox’s Bazar, which has hosted refugees from Myanmar since 1978. As violence continues in Rakhine state, Myanmar, people continue to flee across the border to Bangladesh. They arrive to Cox’s Bazar’s over-cramped living spaces and lack of basic services, finding themselves reliant on humanitarian aid for survival.

We are on site in Cox’s Bazar, running three 24/7 hospitals and supporting in five other health facilities. Our teams provide free of charge services like family planning, neonatal intensive care, mental health support, and non-communicable disease management.

In Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka, where MSF first worked in 1972, we are running a clinic for local communities in the Kamrangirchar neighbourhood. We also support the Kamrangirchar hospital by providing sexual and reproductive health services. As a low-lying coastal country, Bangladesh is exposed to severe flooding and monsoons. Our teams are prepared to support national authorities during flooding emergencies.

Our activities in 2023 in Bangladesh

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2023.

MSF in Bangladesh in 2023 In 2023, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provided medical services through multiple health facilities in Bangladesh, primarily serving Rohingya refugees and host communities in Cox’s Bazar and the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh IAR map 2023

Our general and specialised health services included emergency care, sexual and reproductive care, and mental health support. We also treated patients with non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

It is over six years since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh, fleeing persecution in Myanmar, yet the possibility of a safe return remains remote. Dire, overcrowded living conditions, a lack of basic services and a complete reliance on humanitarian aid are taking a toll on both refugees and the host community. With no solutions to the crisis on the horizon, MSF is witnessing severe consequences for the physical and mental health of refugees stuck indefinitely in the camps.

Since 2019, we have been treating people with injuries sustained in physical assaults and other forms of intense violence, a further indication of the dangerous living conditions in the camps.
 
In May, a scabies prevalence survey conducted by the World Health Organization revealed that nearly 40 per cent of Rohingya refugees had the disease, reflecting what we were seeing in our clinics between March 2022 and May 2023. MSF undertook concerted advocacy work calling for a mass drug administration programme in the camps, which was then successfully implemented.

Towards the end of the year, we handed over our Unchiprang project, where we had been offering basic healthcare, to the International Rescue Committee, and concluded our activities at Sadar hospital in Cox’s Bazar.

In Dhaka, we continue to run two clinics in Kamrangirchar district, offering sexual and reproductive healthcare, medical and psychological treatment for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and occupational health services for factory workers.

We also constructed a waste management area in Kamrangirchar hospital, a 31-bed public health facility, where we will begin to offer sexual and reproductive health services in 2024.  

Additionally, in collaboration with the national Communicable Disease Control Programme, we drafted national hepatitis C treatment guidelines, which are currently under review by Bangladeshi specialists.

 

In 2023
 
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4 December 2018