Rohingya Diaries: Day 1 Cii Projects & Syria Relief Rohingya Humanitarian Aid Mission*

Cii Projects Update: Humanitarian trip to Bangladesh with Hafez Yousuf Manack Cii Projects, Brother Atiqur Rahmaan , Syria Relief; Brother Ikhlaaq Muhamed and Brother Haytham

21 October 2018

Alhamdulillah the team set out this morning to visit the Refugee Camps for the 1st time since we have arrived in Cox’s Bazaar. It takes approximately 2.5 hours to drive to the refugee camps from Cox’s Bazaar.

Today we went to visit a Refugee camp called the Jadimora Refugee camp. This camp has been affected by the monsoon season and many shelters have been destroyed and damaged.

As I got out of the vehicle this morning I had some major concerns to see what the current condition of our Rohingyan Muslim brothers and sisters was from the last time I was here in March 2018.

I wasn’t surprised to see that the houses were destroyed and damaged and the small children still walking around with absolutely no clothing on their bodies. It was devastating once again to witness these children aged 2-5 years with no clothing. This brings tears to my eyes every single time I see them in this condition and the part that makes me sad is when we walking pass them they say ‘Paisa doh’ which means ‘give me money’.

We continued our journey through these camps, today we were going to slaughter 2 cows and feed approximately 4000 people a meal which also comes with rice, vegetables, green beans, bitter melon and potatoes. This will be put into food parcels and given out.

At 10am this morning Cii Projects, as well as Global Relief trust each, bought a cow to be slaughtered and I was given the privilege by the community here to slaughter the cow myself…

I was scared as it was my first time slaughtering a cow and to see how wild it became, was even scarier, but the refugees managed to tame the cow and calm it down. Thereafter I slaughtered the cow using a machetti. Alhumdulillah! This was truly an experience on its own…

The slaughtering of the cow

The cow was then skinned and cut up into pieces and cooked as a meal today… Cii projects will be sponsoring another 2 more cows over the next 2 days inshallah…

Alhumdulillah! Cii Projects Yousuf Manack Slaughtering the cow

After the meal, we went around looking at the damage that was caused to these camps during the monsoon season. As I stepped into the 1st house my foot soaked into the mud. I got a shock as I did not expect the ground to still be so muddy.

I spoke to one of the brothers here in the camp and, with tears in his eyes, he said that the drainage system is inadequate for everyday use, let alone the monsoon season.

Muddy area outside the camps

During the monsoon season, half of Bangladesh itself gets flooded. Just imagine what happens in these camps with water and sand mixing making mud. It causes shelters to fall down because they are built on marsh/bug land( Soft sand in a valley).

As we continued to see these houses which cannot be inhabited due to the muddy conditions, we noticed that there is absolutely no way of getting the water out of the camps.

Unfortunately, this is the conditions they have to live in until there is a solution.

But nevertheless, these people are happy to have a roof over their heads and some sort of foundation. But how long will it Last?

Then we continued our journey and were given the opportunity of meeting a family which initially consisted of 7 people(Father, mother, 4 sons and 1 Daughter. But currently, the family has just 4 members.
The eldest 2 sons were shot dead and the father was also shot dead in the marketplace.

The widowed bereaved mother with a daughter and 2 disabled sons had to flee for their lives across the border because their house was set on fire.

Whilst our team was speaking to them, one of the disable sons started reciting the Quraan and the other reminded him to read Ta ‘awuz and Tasmiyah before he reads the Quraan. This brought tears to my eyes but more love for them to my heart…

The current situation in these camps are not getting any better, in fact, they are only deteriorating as time goes by. Every single moment I spend in these camps and observe I make shukr to Allah SWT for what I have been blessed with.

Tomorrow we will be going back to the Jadimora Camps to Distribute some Hampers to the suffering families

See banking details below to donate generously towards the families survival supplies.

BANKING DETAILS
Bank: FNB
Account holder: Cii Projects
Acc no: 625 011 580 77
Branch Code: 250 655
Ref: ROH zakaat/lillah

Cii Projects, together we make the difference!