While governments are busy in pushing their shoulders to abandon the whole community of Rohingyas In Bangladesh, a team of volunteers from the Sikh organisation "Khalsa Aid" has reached Bangladesh-Myanmar on Sunday night, providing relief to the lakhs of Rohingya refugees who are dealing with the food crisis.
Amarpreet Singh, a volunteer with Khalsa Aid India, has been keeping a lookout for fires at the other side of the border. "Fire means more people will cross over," he says. For the past few days, Singh, the managing director of the humanitarian organisation, has had to depend on the crudest possible signals to prepare himself for eventualities. The walk to the nearest health camp, almost 30 km away, is insurmountable for most of them with deteriorating health conditions. Most of them choose a good meal over medical check-ups because all they want is food and shelter from the rains.
About 18 volunteers from humanitarian organisation Khalsa Aid International, who have reached the Bangladesh border at Teknaf, are working with locals. The Khalsa Aid team is setting up langars (community kitchens). They transport the raw materials from Dhaka - a 10-hour ride away from Teknaf. "Since this town is a bit cut off from the major cities, it gets difficult while sourcing the materials due to connectivity problems and incessant rain, but we are trying to reach as many people as possible, the condition of the refugees living in camps was “miserable to say the least,” says Singh.
“It was our first day here today and we did a pre-assessment before launching a major relief operation. We had come prepared for providing relief to some 50,000 people, but there are more than three lakh refugees here. They are living without water, food, clothes and shelter. They are sitting wherever they can find a corner. It is raining, but people do not have anywhere to go. It is miserable to say the least. We will be providing them langar food (community kitchen) and shelter. We are arranging tarpaulins but since the number of refugees has overwhelmingly exceeded our preparations, it can some time to make arrangements,” According to him, approximately six lakh people are set to arrive on Thursday. "We were initially unprepared because we had anticipated an influx of around 50,000 people. After reaching this town, we realised that nearly two to three lakh refugees have already arrived and more are crossing over every day. We are getting more local volunteers and there's a team coming from Punjab on the day after tomorrow," said Singh.
The Khalsa Aid Community is serving food and water to the refugees, he said that there were huge gaps filled beyond the capacity.