Rohingya: Monsoon Season

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of the monsoon season on the Rohingya.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. The desperate situation facing the Rohingya people is one of the greatest humanitarian crises of recent times. It is a deliberate crisis—a man-made crisis—and one now set to be compounded by nature as the monsoon season hits Bangladesh. Nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees who have fled Burma are in camps in Bangladesh. During August last year, nearly 700,000 Rohingya men, women and children fled, following unspeakable violence and systematic abuse, including torture, rape and murder, by the Burmese military.

The monsoons look set to exacerbate an already dire situation. The International Rescue Committee has estimated that 36% of the Rohingya in the camps already do not have access to safe water. Nearly one quarter are suffering from acute malnutrition. Communicable diseases thrive in those conditions; 81% of water samples collected from Rohingya refugee households in December last year held E. coli. The World Health Organisation’s report on the situation in the camps makes for grim reading. Diphtheria, acute jaundice, respiratory infections and watery diarrhoea stalk the camps. To mitigate those problems, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees put out a plea for $950 million to meet the refugees’ immediate needs, but less than 20% of that money has been raised.

I visited the largest of those camps, at Kutupalong, with parliamentary colleagues in November last year. I saw sights, and heard testimony, so shocking that they will remain with me for the rest of my life.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate and on her speech. I had the privilege of going on that visit with her. It was difficult to get around Kutupalong when the roads were dry and the sun was out; if it is pouring with rain, those roads will be simply impassable and treacherous, especially to the young children in the camps.

[Jo Stevens]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is hard to imagine how anyone will be able to move. When the monsoons hit, not only will shelters collapse, but it will be almost impossible away.

When we were at Kutupalong last November, I met a young, very frail woman, who beckoned me inside her tarpaulin shelter and pointed at a little bundle of dirty rags on the plastic sheeting on the ground. I did not know what she was pointing at, but she slowly lifted the rags and underneath was her days-old baby. She held the baby up with such pride and with tears in her eyes, but I thought, “What a beginning to life for that child.” It is a squalid existence, but undoubtedly a safer one than if that young, heavily pregnant woman had been unable to get out of Burma.