Rohingya refugees facing medical crisis on Bhasan Char

More than a quarter of the approximately 18,000 Rohingya refugees being held on Bangladesh’s silt island of Bhasan Char are reportedly suffering from a sudden outbreak of diarrhea. At least three children have died, according to news reports.  

While diarrheal disease is preventable and certainly should not be fatal, it remains a challenge in many parts of the world where sufficient access to safe water, sanitation, hygiene, and health care is limited.

But Bangladesh could have avoided such an outbreak if the government, as previously planned, had allowed technical and humanitarian experts to visit Bhasan Char to determine safety and protection needs. Instead, the authorities relocated thousands of refugees to the remote island without first ensuring that it had adequate health care and access to resources on the mainland. 

 Dr Tanvir Anwar, a physician on the island, told The Daily Star that Bhasan Char’s meager health-care system is overwhelmed by the outbreak and that medical facilities – admitting 40-50 diarrhea patients per day – are turning away anyone with illnesses except for acute diarrhea. He said people are being treated in corridors and on the floor and that there is a “crisis of medicine as the disease is increasing rapidly.”

Refugees whom Human Rights Watch (HRW) spoke with on the island confirmed this, saying that as people experiencing other illnesses were turned away from the health-care facilities, health workers told them that they just didn’t have enough capacity. Furthermore, emergency supplies from the mainland have been delayed because of monsoon-season rain.