Eight kitchens to serve free meals to Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar

Authorities in Cox’s Bazar are setting up eight free kitchens to serve meals to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees.

The kitchens will operate in the camps at Balukhali and Kutupalong from Tuesday, said Additional Executive Magistrate Khaled Mahmud, who has been heading the district administration’s Rohingya cell.

Cooked meals will be handed out to refugees from 12 spots. The move aims to prevent a humanitarian crisis amid the ongoing exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, he said.

“The number of these kitchens is far lesser than what is needed but we will still run them in our effort to overcome this crisis. The kitchens will operate until all refugees are brought under a relief programme,” said the magistrate.

Bangladesh has been facing a fresh wave of Rohingya refugees who for the past three weeks have been fleeing the worst crisis involving the Muslim minority community in Myanmar’s Rakhine.

Over 400,000 refugees have arrived in Bangladesh using various border points after the Myanmar army, responding to coordinated terror attacks by Muslims insurgents on Aug 25, began a ‘clearance operation’ targeting Rohingya villages.

Bangladesh had already been housing 400,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees from past violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Myanmar, which refuses to recognise the Rohingyas as citizens despite international pressure, has neglected Bangladesh’s repeated calls to take back the refugees.