3.1 Situation in the Camps

In January 2021, there were 870,000 Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar district (Government of Bangladesh and UNHCR, 2019). This number is slightly lower than previous estimates12 and based on a joint verification exercise between the Government of Bangladesh and UNHCR that was started in 2018 and continued throughout 2019. More than 590,000 refugees reside in the Kutupalong-Balukhali Expansion Site that lies 35 kilometres (22 miles) outside the town of Cox’s Bazar, where most organizations and the Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) are located. The size of the camp area increased rapidly from 0.4 km² in January 2016 to 9.5 km² in February 2018 and to almost 15 km² in December 2018 (Benz, et al., 2019; ISCG, 2019, p. 12). Combined with the camp areas south of the Kutupalong-Balukhali Expansion Site, the Government of Bangladesh has allocated a total of 26.3 km² of land (6,500 acres) to the Rohingya refugees (ISCG, 2019, p. 12). Before the Rohingya influx, most of the land was covered by forests, where the lack of infrastructure, especially during the early stages of the response, made service provision extremely difficult (Ibid., p. 37). In 2018 and 2019, significant construction was carried out in the area, leading to the development of a solid drainage system and a network of auxiliary roads, the latter of which was expanded in 2020 with support from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank (ISCG, 2020, p. 20). However, the heavy deforestation and its adverse impacts on the climate have exacerbated the risk of landslides and flooding during the monsoon and cyclone seasons. Furthermore, the proximity of shelters poses serious risks, such as fire hazards and the spread of communicable diseases (ISCG, 2019, p. 37). With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cox’s Bazar, the authorities imposed a partial lockdown of the district and only allowed humanitarian actors to deliver critical services to the refugees (Reliefweb, 2020, p. 2; RFI, 2020). Meanwhile, several INGOs noted that the security situation in the camps is gradually deteriorating, with the outbreak of internal clashes between Rohingya groups, which has forced "hundreds of families to flee their shelters" since September 2020 (Reliefweb, 2020, p. 3). Most of these refugees have found shelter with their (extended) family members in other camps.