Almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing the violence in Burma's Rakhine state, since August 25. Many of the refugees tell distressing stories of their villages being attacked or burned by Burmese soldiers, or of their neighbors or family members being injured or killed. The United Nations has accused Burmese troops of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign. The new arrivals in Bangladesh join an already-existing large population of Rohingya refugees, which has prompted the government to announce plans to build one of the world’s largest refugee camps to house more than 800,000 stateless Rohingya, replacing hundreds of makeshift camps that are popping up near the border. Local medical teams, supported by UNICEF and WHO, have started a massive immunization drive in the camps, racing to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases. The UN Refugee Agency has called the current crisis the fastest-growing refugee emergency in the world today.
The Rohingya in Bangladesh: The Fastest-Growing Refugee Emergency in the World
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A woman collapses from exhaustion as Rohingya refugees arrive in a wooden boat from Burma on the shore of Shah Porir Dwip, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on October 1, 2017. #
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Rohingya Muslims, who spent four days in the open after crossing over from Burma into Bangladesh, carry their children and belongings after they were allowed to proceed towards a refugee camp, at Palong Khali, Bangladesh, on October 19, 2017. #
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A Rohingya girl cries as refugees fleeing from Burma cross a stream in the hot sun on a muddy rice field on October 16, 2017, near Palang Khali, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. #
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Thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing from Burma walk along a muddy rice field after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on October 9, 2017. #
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Khalida, a Rohingya refugee and mother of three children, wades across a canal near the no-man's-land area between Bangladesh and Burma, in the Palongkhali area next to Ukhia, on October 18, 2017. #
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A Rohingya refugee child gets an oral cholera vaccine, distributed by the World Health Organization with the help of volunteers and local NGOs, in a refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on October 11, 2017. #
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Hasina worries over her 11-month-old son, Mohammed Anas, who is suffering from acute pneumonia in the pediatric-neonatal unit at the Doctors Without Borders Kutupalong clinic in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on October 4, 2017. Doctors Without Borders has been providing comprehensive basic healthcare services at their Kutupalong clinic since 2009. Due to the current Rohingya crisis, the clinic has expanded its capacity, dealing with approximately 2,500 outpatient treatments and around 1,000 emergency room patients per week. All healthcare services provided at the clinic are free of charge to both the Rohingya refugee population as well as local Bangladeshi patients. #
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A woman makes her way to the shore as hundreds of Rohingya refugees arrived under the cover of darkness by wooden boats from Burma to Shah Porir Dwip, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, on September 27, 2017. #
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A Bangladeshi man helps Rohingya Muslim refugees to disembark from a boat on the Bangladeshi shoreline of the Naf river after crossing the border from Burma in Teknaf on September 30, 2017. #
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Rohingya refugees who were stranded after leaving Burma walk from the no-man's-land between Burma and Bangladesh into the Bangladeshi district of Ukhia on October 19, 2017. #
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Thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing from Burma are kept under tight security by Bangladeshi military after crossing the border in a rice paddy field near Palang Khali, Cox's Bazar, on October 16, 2017. A rainbow appeared in the sky after a brief rainstorm. #
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Rohingya refugee Ali Hussain is restrained by his sister with a metal chain in the Balukhali refugee camp in the Bangladeshi district of Ukhia on October 15, 2017. Hussein's older sister Mairam Khatoon keeps her brother chained up, she says, for his own safety, and to keep him from wandering off and getting lost in the vast refugee camp. Khatoon says Hussain, a former schoolteacher in Burma's Rakhine province, has become mentally unstable since he witnessed his wife and three sons being killed by Burmese soldiers who slit their throats. #
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A man strikes anxious Rohingya children with a cane as things get out of control during a humanitarian aid distribution while monsoon rains continue to batter the area causing more difficulties on October 7, 2017, in Thainkhali camp, Cox's Bazar. #
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Rohingya refugee Azida Begum, 11, was shot twice, under her arm and her leg, by the Burmese military when they killed her mother as she was fleeing her village in Burma. Azida now lives with her grandmother, her father having died years ago. This photograph was taken in Palongkhali, Bangladesh, on October 10, 2017. #
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Rohingya refugees react before the funeral of a family member, whose family says he succumbed to injuries inflicted by the Burmese Army before their arrival, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on September 29, 2017. #
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A young Rohingya Muslim boy, Sheikh Ahmad, recites verses from the Koran in a crowded little tent that serves as a madrasa in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh on September 24, 2017. As he lifted his hands in prayer, tears began to roll down his face and he prayed for those killed in the violence that his family escaped. Later, in his family's little shack, the Associated Press photographer asked him "why did you cry?" Tears came again and he said, "I'm crying for my motherland." #
Dar Yasin / AP
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