Drinking Water Security Challenges in Rohingya Refugee Camps of Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh

Abstract

Since August 2017, more than 600,000 Rohingyas fled the brutal ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and seek refuge in Bangladesh. The massive scale influx and resource constraint led to a major humanitarian crisis surpassing the coping ability of local institutions. The refugees were located in temporary settlements on hilly areas of Cox’s Bazaar with inadequate water and sanitation facilities. Lack of safe drinking water was one of the critical issues around the camp, responsible for various diseases such as cholera, typhoid, diarrhea. This study was conducted to assess drinking water security in two Rohingya refugee camps – Camp 2 and recently built Camp 4 Extension - to find key everyday issues refugees are facing with drinking water. It attempts to find whether contamination is occurring during collection, transportation and storage of drinking water by comparing water quality at source with that of storage. Results show that prevalence of diseases and water collection time is lower and access to water source and sanitation is higher in Camp 4Ext, confirming that proper planning produces better outcome. Hygienic practices of water handling were noted in both camps. The current approach is providing basic humanitarian support to refugees which is not sufficient as long-term and Bangladesh Government should consider providing long-term water supply to the camps.