$1.4m Aussie grant for Rohingyas

United Nations High Commissioner for the Refugees (UNHCR) is going to build new homes for 10,000 Rohingya refugees at Kutupalong Camp in Cox's Bazar at a cost of US$1.4 million donated by the Australian government.
Each of the 280 new six-unit bungalows will house six families in more spacious shelters than the decrepit huts they had been living in, said a press release issued by UNHCR office in Dhaka yesterday.
“This is a major achievement,” said Pia Prytz Phiri, UNHCR representative in Bangladesh.
“Shelter is of course at the very centre of refugees' lives. Improved shelter means a better quality of life, better protection and better health. It's really hard to overstate how important this improvement will be for the 10,000 refugees who will be benefited. I visit the camps often, and know how excited the refugees are to get new homes after too many years in the old hovels.”
Kutupalong Camp is home to almost 10,800 Rohingya refugees while Nayapara Camp, a second camp near Cox's Bazar, houses nearly 17,000 refugees. The Rohingya refugees have been in Bangladesh since fleeing Myanmar's northern Rakhine state in the early 1990s.
Over the last two years, the Bangladeshi government has allowed UNHCR, other UN agencies and non-governmental organisations to make substantial improvements such as new housing, improved medical care and greater vocational training -- in the two camps, which are funded by UNHCR but administered by the government.
Thanking Australian government for the donation, Phiri said, “This is the first time Australia has contributed to UNHCR's programme in Bangladesh, and its contribution is going to make a huge and very welcome improvement in many refugees' lives.”
The contribution came at different times in two parts from the Australian International Refugee Fund (US$517,000) and from the Australia Minister of Immigration (US$883,000), the press release said.