Monsoon Rains Could Devastate Rohingya Camps
Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are living in thousands of makeshift shelters on steep, sandy hills in Bangladesh. Humanitarian groups are afraid of what will happen when the monsoons come.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have built makeshift shelters on steep, sandy hills in Bangladesh. They've fled what the U.N. has called ethnic cleansing in neighboring Myanmar.
Now they face a new danger in the unplanned camps that sprawl over 3,000 acres: The monsoon season is expected to start in April.
When the monsoon comes, bringing 20 to 30 inches of rain a month at their heaviest, aid officials worry that many of the hillsides where the Rohingya are living could collapse. There's also concern that hastily-constructed latrines could be flooded, contaminating the refugees' drinking water and sparking a major disease outbreak.
In the Balukhali refugee camp, 32-year-old Dil
