Before-and-after satellite images show massive influx of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
The severity of the world's fastest growing refugee crisis becomes even clearer when viewed from space.
An estimated 624,000 Rohingya refugees, a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since late August to escape oppression and extreme violence from Myanmar's military and Buddhist majority. Due to decades of persecution, nearly 1 million Rohingya currently live in Bangladesh.
The recent influx of Rohingya in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, where the Kutupalong and Nayapara refugee camps are located, has prompted plans to build the largest refugee camp in the world.
New satellite images, provided to Mashable by commercial space imagery company DigitalGlobe, show the drastic changes to the Cox's Bazar landscape over a period of just four months, as densely populated settlements quickly began to cover large swaths of the region.
The differences in the images are staggering.
In one closeup image of Cox's Bazar from May 25 — before the Myanmar military escalated its violent "clearance operations" against the Rohingya in August — the region is mostly green, filled with lush forests.
A satellite image of the same area, taken on September 25, shows the greenery replaced with mazes of tents and makeshift shelters dotting the landscape, and thick dirt roads snaking through them.
Aerial images like these help show the world what aid workers, organizations, journalists, and photographers have seen firsthand. Thousands of Rohingya refugees, many of them children, continue to cross the border into Bangladesh on a daily basis, as aid groups struggle to fill the needs of the growing population.
"The staggering scale of the Rohingya crisis is difficult to capture."
"The staggering scale of the Rohingya crisis is difficult to capture," Roger Arnold, a photographer with UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, said in a recent video produced by the organization.
"With aerial photography, I've been able to show the immense scale of the Kutupalong refugee camp. The area is now severely overcrowded and growing more so every day."
That means aid organizations need to not only serve the Rohingya people, but also work on infrastructure to do so successfully.
The World Food Programme, for example, is building roads and bridges in the area so it can deliver food, medicine, and other life-saving supplies to the Kutupalong camp. UNHCR is also supporting road construction and site planning, building latrines and wells and improving water and sanitation facilities.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
As the Rohingya crisis continues to make international headlines, various public figures have addressed the situation over the past several weeks.
In a joint press conference on November 15 with Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi — the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was criticized for failing to publicly condemn the military's actions against the Rohingya — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for a full investigation into the crisis.
"We are very concerned by reports of widespread atrocities committed by Myanmar security forces," Tillerson said. "What we know occurred in Rakhine state ... has a number of characteristics of crimes against humanity."
Tillerson later added that "it is clear" this is a situation of "ethnic cleansing," the same term the United Nations' high commissioner for human rights used to describe the Rohingya crisis in September.
Pope Francis also met with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh's capital city of Dhaka last week as the last stop of his Asia tour.
While he declined to say the term "Rohingya" in his speeches in Myanmar, where the term is not recognized by authorities, and the Pope's use of it may have increased backlash against Christians in the country, he did reference them by name in Bangladesh, saying, "The presence of God today is also called Rohingya."
"Your tragedy is very hard, very big," Pope Francis told the refugees. "We give you space in our hearts. In the name of everyone, of those who persecute you, those who hurt you, and especially of the world's indifference, I ask for your forgiveness. Forgive us."
Deputy Science Editor Miriam Kramer contributed reporting.
Topics Activism Social Good
Matt Petronzio was the Social Good Editor at Mashable, where he led coverage surrounding social impact, activism, identities, and world-changing innovation. He was based at the New York City headquarters from January 2012 to April 2018, and previously worked as the assistant features editor.
