The Disasters Emergency Committee Rohingya Crisis appeal has raised £28m to date, the charity said as it announced that the appeal will close at the end of this month.
The DEC, a collaborative group made up of 13 humanitarian charities including the British Red Cross, Save the Children and Islamic Relief, launched the appeal on 4 October 2017, at the start of the most recent exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh.
Of the £28m raised to date £5m came from UK Aid Match.
In the first six months of the DEC-funded response to the crisis, the period from October 201 to March 2018, DEC funding provided:
- 351,500 people with food assistance - more than the population of Cardiff
- 34,000 families with household essentials such as blankets and pots and pans
- 124,400 people with clean drinking water and sanitation, including the construction of 90 deep tube wells
- 19,500 families with materials to build a shelter
- 42,300 people with free medical care and health support
- 28,200 vulnerable people with some form of protection, including the provision of 43 ‘safe spaces’ for vulnerable people such as women, children and older people
- 10,700 families with vouchers to buy fresh food
The DEC has produced a full report for the six-month period, available here.
The DEC said that the second phase of the DEC-funded response runs from April 2018 to September 2019. Plans for this period include supporting nine health facilities and two mobile clinics helping 200,000 people; 55 deep tube wells to provide clean drinking water; public and individual solar lamps to keep 11,000 people safe at night; agricultural tools and seeds; and business grants to help 15,000 people restore their livelihoods.
The DEC said that more than 700,000 people have now arrived in the Cox’s Bazar district since 25 August 2017 and in total there are 1.3 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in the area. The Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion site, informally known as the megacamp, is now considered the world’s biggest refugee camp.
It said: “Monsoon rains are falling, but it is expected that the worst is yet to come.
"DEC charities are assisting by reinforcing shelters; strengthening the site of the refugee settlements using sandbags and bamboo to prevent landslides; decommissioning and desludging latrines and digging deep tube wells to prevent water contamination and the spread of disease; meeting ongoing food needs.”
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