PHR Action Center

This February, PHR conducted an emergency health assessment in the makeshift Kutupalong camp in southeastern Bangladesh, just across the border from Burma, where 30,000 Burmese Rohingya refugees languish in squalid conditions.

What our investigators witnessed shocked them.

PHR investigators found camp conditions to be among the worst they had ever seen, with people housed in ramshackle huts made of twigs and plastic sheeting, denied food aid, and living beside open sewers. Almost 20% of the children they surveyed suffered from acute malnutrition.

An enormous public health and humanitarian crisis is deepening — and the Bangladeshi government needs to stop obstructing food aid and to stop violating the rights of these legitimate refugees.

Check out PHR's emergency report Stateless and Starving for more details on this emerging humanitarian crisis in southeast Bangladesh. This report has garnered major media coverage from around the world — from the Boston Globe to the Associated Press; the BBC to Agence France Presse; the New York Times to Voice of America. You can also see a slide show of photos from the investigation.

Join us in telling the Bangladeshi government to stop forcibly deporting Rohingya refugees and to provide immediate food aid to the thousands starving in makeshift refugee camps on the Burma border.

Email the Bangladeshi Embassy in DC and urge them to take action — and ask 6 friends to do the same. Thousands of lives are at stake.

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

30,000 Rohingya refugees forced to live in the makeshift Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh are at risk of starving to death. The Bangladeshi government must act now to end this humanitarian crisis.

First, I urge you to allow humanitarian organizations to feed these refugees. Children are starving, and Bangladesh will be held accountable by the world if its leaders bear witness to this crisis and do nothing.

Second, I urge Bangladeshi authorities to stop deporting Rohingya refugees to Burma. Bangladesh has signed on to the world's major human rights treaties and has core obligations towards refugees. At the most basic level, Bangladesh is obligated not to deport refugees who would be at risk of persecution if returned to their country of origin.

The human rights crisis is Burma is worsening daily: sending Rohingya back to that country will certainly lead to human rights violations and loss of life. These deportations are a clear violation of international human rights law.

The eyes of the world are on Bangladesh, which must work with other countries in the region to help resolve Burma's ongoing human rights violations, while taking immediate action to stop the looming humanitarian crisis within your own borders.

Signed by:

Campaign Launched:
March 10, 2010