By Ashok Ramsarup :: Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation – released a documentary entitled ‘Out of Fear’ focusing on the Rohingya youth trapped in violence and despair in Bangladesh.

This is a 28-minute documentary based on testimonies of Rohingya youth, highlighting, what the MSF described, the blatant despair and lack of perspectives this new generation is growing up in. 

The youth portrayed in this documentary were either born stateless in their parents’ homeland of Myanmar before fleeing widespread targeted violence in 2017 or were born in refugee camps in Bangladesh where nearly one million people currently live in limbo.

The humanitarian organisation which has been operating since 1985, established the Kutupalong Field Hospital to serve refugees and the local community in the Cox Bazaar precinct.  

In 2019, MSF shifted its focus to addressing longer-term health needs, including chronic illnesses like high blood pressure and diabetes.

MSF said in a statement that the drivers of this violence were the situations of containment and exclusion, creating an increasingly unsafe environment in which the Rohingya were incredibly vulnerable.

According to MSF children and adolescents make up over 50% of the Rohingya refugee population in the largest refugee camp in the world. “The Rohingya youth and their parents are living as the world’s largest stateless and most persecuted population.

They have been denied basic rights for decades in Myanmar, and their rights are severely restricted in Bangladesh,” said the statement. 

The statement highlighted the living conditions experienced by Rohingya in the refugee camps which are rooted in a reality of containment and rights deprivation.

MSF said the refugees were living in overcrowded and unsanitary camps, facing high risk of flooding and landslides.

“They have limited access to bare necessities, including, food water, sanitation, education, and health care. 

“As of September this year, only 30% of the humanitarian funding required for basic services for Rohingya people is funded and the decrease in the level of humanitarian funding has dire consequences for Rohingya.

Since the start of 2023, the food ration distributed to Rohingya has decreased by 40%,” according to the statement.

As a medical humanitarian organisation working in the camps, MSF said: “The Government of Bangladesh has a de-facto responsibility to Rohingya refugees in the camps of Cox’s Bazaar.

However, one country cannot respond to this crisis alone. The absence of long-term and sustainable solutions in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and other countries, highlighted the fact there was an urgent need and responsibility for an increased response from the international community, including governments and donors, to answer Rohingya’s needs, to prevent their situation deteriorating even further,” MSF added.