Ghumdhum at Naikhongchari in Bandarban is one of the border points where Rohingyas entering into Bangladesh territory to escape persecution in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. There is a small river named ‘Tombru’ flowing at the point and a no-man’s land on the bank of creek. A long barbed wire fence with Myanmar is seen from the Bangladesh’s side of the zero point.

Around 1200 families took shelter building makeshift tents with black polythene on one side of River Tombru.

Border Guard Bangladesh members have cordoned them off and are keeping close vigilance so that they cannot proceed further within Bangladesh territory.

The Rohingyas at the no-man’s land are getting food and other services from Bangladesh side if the BGB permits.

‘We’re allowing them to come to our side to collect drinking water and to buy food and other necessary things,’ said an on-duty Bangladesh Border Guard man.

After collecting their necessary valuables and relief materials they are going back other side of the line drawn by the canal.

The temporary shelter is different from Kutupalong and Balukhali camps in two ways. It is built on no-man’s land where people don’t have easy access. Relief materials are not easily reached to the makeshift shelters like other camps.

In front of them, border guards block entry to Bangladesh. Behind them, the Myanmar Army plants deadly land mines to prevent their return.

Ghumdhum area of Bandarban is the exotic jewel in Bangladesh’s tourist crown. It is now a nightmare no-man’s land for 12,000 Rohingya families frantic for food, water and medical aid.

Now Rohingyas living at the no-man’s land survive mostly on dry food offered by villagers and local volunteers. Taking permission from the BGB soldier, some of the Rohingya men came to the Bangladesh side on September 14. They portrayed their plight of facing acute food crisis.

On Thursday, it was seen from zero point near Tombru at Ghumdhum border under Bandarban hill track district and from the Shah Porir Dwip jetty on the shore of Naf River at Teknaf that heavy smoke was coming from the villages at Rakhine, suggesting houses had been recently set alight.

The Rohingya are fleeing from a Myanmar military offensive in the western state of Rakhine that was triggered by a mass exodus towards Bangladesh since on August 25.

It was seen that limited shelter capacity in Kutupalong and Balukhali makeshift camps is already exhausted.

Refugees are now squatting in makeshift temporary shelters that have mushroomed along the road and near the available land of hill at Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya.

While most of Rohingya refugees arrive on foot, mostly walking through the jungle and mountains for several days, thousands are braving long and perilous voyages across the rough seas of the Bay of Bengal.

They arrive in poor condition, exhausted, hungry and desperate for food.

Many Rohingyas took shelter on both sides of the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf Highway, especially from Ukhiya to Teknaf. Many were seen cutting nearby hills to build shelters with bamboos and other materials.

Rohingyas were found desperate for food and shelters. Desperate movements on highways put many Rohingyas children at risk of meeting road fatalities.

Some wealthier people from different parts of the country are providing food for hungry people and donate cash money to buy other materials on a limited scale from individual and volunteering organization’s capacity.

Though many new shelters have so far been constructed cutting hills, still many Rohingyas are living without any shelter. Rains at intervals have also mounted their sufferings on a great scale.

When a relief-laden vehicle arrives at Rohingya camps, hundreds more people run after it for collecting the food materials. But feeble, sick, elderly and children cannot able to win the fight of getting their food.

‘This is the most devastating condition I have ever seen in my life,’ an undergraduate student Ziaul Hoque Rana told the correspondent as he was distributing food and clothes and arranging emergency blood if needed among newly arrived Rohingyas.

Many trucks and jeeps laden with relief materials were seen heading towards Rohingya camps and border point areas but local people say these are inadequate given to growing number of new arrivals every day.

The humanitarian agencies are getting concerned since the number of refugees is still rising. Anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 are still entering Bangladesh every day.

The response from the international community to deal with Rohingya crisis is not nearly enough.

Bangladesh is already host to more than 400,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since the early 1990s and many of the new refugees are hungry and sick.

‘We will all have to ramp up our response massively, from food to shelter,’ George William Okoth-Obbo, assistant high commissioner for operations at the UN refugee agency, said during a visit to the Kutupalong Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya.

Okoth-Obbo said on behalf of international community, UNHCR has been trying to suppress the Rohingya crisis, but the international community has to do much more to deal with the worsening situation.

He also warned that if the Rohingya crisis is not addressed properly, there will be an endemic situation for lack of basic needs, saying that there are so many children, women and tension as well.

Local people about Rohingya influx

During conversations with at least 13 people on September 14, they argued and suggested that every agency needs to be engaged in addressing Rohingya crisis while local responders should come forward to do so maintaining coordination with all aid agencies to provide assistance to those who fled from Myanmar.

They said although Bangladesh’s private citizens are providing food, clothing and other supports to Rohingyas, such initiatives can never meet the scale of such a crisis. That is why they would like to see state –level interventions from the international community including the multilateral institutions like the UN system to involve themselves more deeply in the effort.

About the registration of new Rohingyas who came to Bangladesh after fresh military crackdown on Rohingyas in Rakhine State, they said they were very delighted that registration process of new Rohingyas is underway and UN will support the registration process.

The Bangladesh government has given shelter to the Rohingyas only on humanitarian ground. Myanmar must acknowledge the Rohingyas as their nationals, Bangladesh demanded.

They said the government has allocated land for makeshift arrangement to give shelter to the Rohingyas. But, it will certainly create a big trouble for Bangladesh for their long-term stay.

Lot still remains to be done to ensure basic needs of the persecuted Muslim minority who managed to escape are met.