ReliefWeb

In Numbers || December 2020

856,663 Rohingya refugees assisted (52% women and girls and 48% men and boys)

73,978 Bangladeshis supported in the host community

Highlights

• WFP launched the first global Retail in a Box (RIAB) pilot in Camp 23 on 6 December; now 2,400 households (11,040 individuals) can receive monthly food assistance through evouchers, rather than in-kind. RIAB is a mobile storage unit that enables WFP to rapidly set up retail outlets. It can be used as a solution to kickstart retail networks and ultimately build a reliable market.

• For the first time in Cox’s Bazar, WFP started providing monthly allowances to host community women engaged in the livelihoods programme through bKash (a national mobile financial service) and disbursed USD 59,846 to 4,827 women.

• Since September 2020, 311,880 WFP food packets (from products such as Super Cereal,
HEB and Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food) and bottles have been collected from the camps and recycled into 240 products (fans, wallets, bags, baskets and mats).

• To assist authorities and communities prepare for schools to reopen WFP constructed WASH blocks in 10 schools, repaired WASH blocks in 11 schools and installed handwashing stations in 120 schools.

Situation Update

• The Government of Bangladesh started relocating Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char island with 1,642 refugees moved in early December and 1,804 at the end of the month.
This is in addition to the 306 Rohingya refugees who were rescued at sea and relocated to the island in April, bringing the total number of refugees on Bhasan Char to approximately 3,750.

• Since the beginning of the pandemic, in Cox’s Bazar, 5,358 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in host communities and 366 in the Rohingya refugee camps.