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Sunday, September 25, 2022 Vol. 17 No. 352
P25.00 nationwide | 3 sections 20 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
HOPE WITHOUT BORDERS
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS / MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES (MSF)
www.businessmirror.com.ph
A broader look at today’s business
A Filipino with the volunteer health group Doctors Without Borders shares a stateless people’s quest for a decent life after being treated so inhumanely for decades.
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By Cai U. Ordinario
MASSIVE blaze can erupt from mundane activities such as cooking and could send entire communities living in makeshift shelters scrambling for their lives.
JAN VINCENT SOTITO, a Filipino nurse working as a project coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS / MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES (MSF)
In 2021, these community fires killed 15 Rohingya refugees and injured 560 others. A total of 45,000 people were displaced, with many hoping against hope that the same thing does not happen to them again. But such is the challenge of living in uncertain conditions. Communities, including people working to help them, are also affected by their misfortunes. One such organization is Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Jan Vincent Sotito, a Filipino nurse who is currently working as a project coordinator in Cox’s Bazar,
Bangladesh, knows this firsthand. A major fire in Cox’s Bazar happened just before he arrived in the community. He recounted that when the Doctors Without Borders team arrived at the site in Balukhali, they found that along with the houses of refugee families, their clinic was also in cinders. Despite this, they wasted no time in setting up teams that will handle mental health and health promotion in the community. Their mental health team provided psychological first aid to those struggling to come to grips with the fire that razed their homes and caused
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A ROHINGYA man stretches his arms out for food distributed by local volunteers, with bags of puffed rice stuffed into his vest at Kutupalong, Bangladesh, September 9, 2017. AP/BERNAT ARMANGUE
SOTITO: “There are many problems and there is only so much we can do. The refugees rely mostly on humanitarian aid. It is a difficult life for them, and the health issues are many.” MSF
their loved ones to perish. Another health team, Sotito said, also began working especially in helping those who were injured by the fire. Most of their injuries were caused by their attempts to save what little they had as well as members of their family. But the loss of lives and property caused by catastrophic events such as fires in Rohingya refugee camps could not compare to the reality of everyday life as a refugee. Sotito said a gamut of health problems and human-rights violations continues to plague these marginalized people. “There are many problems
and there is only so much we can do. The refugees rely mostly on humanitarian aid. It is a difficult life for them, and the health issues are many,” Sotito said.
Reality on the ground
BASED on Human Rights Watch, the Rohingya have faced discrimination and repression since the Myanmar government denied them citizenship in 1982. This has made them stateless for the past four decades. The situation of the refugees dramatically deteriorated, Sotito said, in the past five years when the Continued on A2
n JAPAN 0.4104 n UK 65.7418 n HK 7.4413 n CHINA 8.2506 n SINGAPORE 41.1861 n AUSTRALIA 38.7933 n EU 57.4657 n KOREA 0.0415 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.5273
Source: BSP (September 23, 2022)