Matthew Brook calls Garden Bay, B.C., home, but he has travelled well beyond Canada’s borders to help countless refugees in need. He has been with UNHCR since 2000, working in countries including Angola, Colombia and Tanzania. Yet the veteran staffer faced a fresh set of challenges on the front lines of the Rohingya emergency.
He was deployed to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in October 2017 where he served as a Senior Field/ Technical Coordinator. He was part of an emergency response team to support the Government of Bangladesh in providing protection and assistance to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees displaced from Myanmar.
My first week in Bangladesh I travelled to Anjuman Para on the border with Myanmar. Thousands of refugees were strung out along the rice paddy and river embankments waiting patiently to be allowed to move from the border area into the refugee settlements, after having walked for days—or even weeks— fleeing Myanmar.
Refugees, including the elderly, individuals with disabilities, day-old babies and expectant mothers sat in the open sun without sanitation, food or water. Working with other humanitarian organizations, UNHCR managed to provide a basic level of assistance, including improvising by hiring a local boat to deliver food along the embankments, and negotiating with border authorities to allow the critically ill to be evacuated for medical assistance.
A few days later, the refugees were finally permitted to start making their way to the refugee settlements—a seemingly endless line of human beings walking with all of their collective belongings on their backs. We quickly realized that our capacity was overwhelmed in terms of receiving refugees at our main distribution point in Kutupalong, the main refugee settlement. A Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) colleague and I decided to set up an extra distribution point on the spur of the moment. Within an hour, we had a system in place to direct people into two lines: to receive food in one line, and blankets, tarps, sleeping mats and other basic necessities in the other. Over the space of a few short hours, we managed to provide basic assistance for more than 3,000 new arrivals before darkness fell amid torrential rains.
Over the space of a few short hours, we managed to provide basic assistance for more than 3,000 new arrivals before darkness fell amid torrential rains.
Later on in my deployment, UNHCR, working together with the Bangladeshi government and other partners, opened up new zones of the refugee settlements with better access to services like health, education, water and sanitation. Tens of thousands of kits were delivered to refugees to build improved shelters. Teams were established to identify and address protection risks, and even initiated a programme to reduce the possibility of wild elephants trampling refugees in their shelters.
The contributions provided by UNHCR supporters were fundamental to refugees receiving basic protection and assistance in the early days of the crisis. This, combined with the phenomenal industriousness and resilience demonstrated by the refugees, allowed for a significant improvement in their condition.
Going forward, continued support is critical, particularly given the torrential monsoon rains currently afflicting the refugee settlements. R
Matthew Brook (centre) is seen among Rohingya refugees at the Kutapalong refugee settlement, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 2017.
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