United Nations, May 12 (UNI) Late last year, as violent repression in Myanmar sent Rohingyas fleeing to safety in Bangladesh, women from the mainly Muslim minority were subjected to what a United Nations official called “a frenzy of sexual violence”.
Now, a surge in births among these women is imminent, according to aid officials working in the vast refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar region. And in possibly thousands of cases, aid workers believe, the pregnancies resulted from rape — a source of silent anguish among the mothers and likely stigma for the newborns.
With the monsoon season fast approaching in Bangladesh, United Nations agencies and their partners are struggling to protect nearly 700,000 Rohingya refugees from disaster and disease. Providing proper medical care in the camps is a severe challenge at best, and one made more difficult by the wrenching legacy of sexual violence.