Letter from the road to Anjuman Para
Writing to colleagues, a veteran aid worker shares her impressions after visiting some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees seeking safety in Bangladesh.
From: Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams
Sent: 02 November 2017 09:10 AM
Subject: Thoughts from Cox’s Bazar
Dear colleagues,
I wanted to send a quick email about my thoughts and observations from our first full day visiting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. I write as we speed through the roads leaving the city centre of Cox’s Bazar on the way to Anjuman Para, where several thousand Rohingya refugees have arrived overnight with others reportedly close behind them.
Yesterday we walked over seven kilometres and climbed the equivalent of 16 flights of stairs up and down the hills around Kutupalong refugee camp and extension site. We started the day in the UNHCR transit centre, where the most vulnerable new arrivals can stay — some for a few hours, others up to three days — to rest and recuperate before being relocated to their settlement sites.
These are the families needing special assistance before they can continue: the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women, new mothers, malnourished or sick children. We met several families who had survived a horrible boat capsize the day prior. Their trauma was incredibly raw, their pain palpable. Of the 42 people on the boat, 22 were injured badly enough to require hospital treatment and 4 others lost their lives — including two children.
I had to fight back tears as I held hands with one mother who had lost her daughter the day before.
I met many women trying the best they could to provide for their scared and clearly traumatized children, when they themselves were visibly struggling to make sense of the last few months. I had to fight back tears as I held hands with one mother who had lost her daughter the day before. She was trying to be strong for her other children who survived, but were clearly shaken, their eyes haunted with faraway looks.
I could not bear to see this young mother and her stunningly beautiful children so distraught, bearing the additional grief of losing their beloved sister and daughter after what they described as years of persecution and violence. The children had been unable to attend school, the parents unable to work or move or work freely. They had lived for too long in fear — well before the violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state escalated on 25 August — constantly on edge, never knowing when they might be the next victims of the violence that had taken so many of their relatives and neighbours already.
Several women told me about witnessing young girls abducted and fathers, sons and brothers arrested and never seen again. I cannot imagine the terror of trying to survive, trying to feed your children and maintain some sense of security and comfort for your family when you are perpetually terrified of losing your loved ones, having your daughters and sons snatched from you, or watching your homes being burned — your life going up in flames along with your house. It seemed particularly unfair that after surviving the plight of months and years of violence and persecution they had to survive a shipwreck just as they reached the shores of safety in Bangladesh.
Our UNHCR teams are out in the field, at the borders, in the camps and transit centres early in the morning and working way into the night.
I also met tenacious, dedicated UNHCR colleagues who made me proud of the organization that I still believe in after 20 years on staff. We may not be meeting every single need yet — the needs are simply overwhelming and the rate at which this refugee crisis is growing makes keeping up with arrivals and challenges nearly insurmountable at the moment — but our UNHCR teams are out in the field, at the borders, in the camps and transit centres early in the morning and working way into the night. Last night I was on the phone getting information until almost midnight, and colleagues left at 4:30 am this morning to get to the border areas.
Although it is nothing compared to the treks the Rohingya families have had to make to reach safety here, UNHCR colleagues are walking, climbing, crossing many kilometres daily to reach the farthest outreaches of the camps and settlements where vehicles cannot go. One colleague told me about one day when he clocked over 18 kilometres in a single day. I imagine his step-tracking app gave him a big thumbs up that night. He was tasked with identifying vulnerable families and ensuring that everyone with specific and special needs was accessing critical services and assistance. He interviewed almost 100 families that day and had the sore feet and proud smile to show for his efforts.
I saw colleagues from many different countries and backgrounds — former bankers, teachers, engineers from all continents and religions — all working together working tirelessly in the rain and, later in the day, in the brutal sun. They were planning new settlements to shelter newly arrived families, laying down roads in the transit centre, managing trauma counselling sessions for a dozen Rohingya women with terrifying stories of sexual and gender-based violence — women who are survivors and finally safe.
I saw children flying kites they’d fashioned from used plastic bags and bits of twig, finding such joy when they finally soared high above them.
These Rohingya refugee families brought little more than the clothes on their back and the weight of the trauma, fear and loss that they had endured and memoires of the violence that finally forced them to flee their homes. And yet, as the sun set over the latest section to be developed within the Kutupalong extension site, I was surrounded by the sounds of hammering, sawing, animated chattering, laughter as families built their shelters with the bamboo, cord and plastic sheeting that we had provided.
I saw children flying kites they’d fashioned from used plastic bags and bits of twig, finding such joy when they finally soared high above them. I smelled the aroma of dinners being cooked for families to share together. And then the sun blushed crimson and pink above a sea of UNHCR-logoed tents and shelters as far as I could see. It felt hopeful and so did I.
There is so much work to be done, the needs are so great, but that simply means there is so much we can do, that there are so many people who can be helped. So I thank you for all your valiant and impressive efforts to raise both awareness and support for these Rohingya families and urge you to double these efforts.
The smiles on the children’s faces show this simple truth: Every effort we make and every donation our donors make count. I hope the faces and vistas from these photos inspire you as much as they did me.
Warmest regards,
Joung-ah
Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams is Emergency Response Coordinator (Fundraising) for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. You can follow her on Twitter.
This piece first appeared on Yahoo News.
