‘A bomb blew off parts of my hand’: wounded Rohingya refugees overwhelm Bangladesh hospital
The United Nations claims 270,000 Rohingya have flooded into neighbouring Bangladesh since deadly violence erupted in Myanmar’s Rakhine state two weeks ago
Nurses at the Bangladeshi hospital treating 16-year-old Rohingya refugee Mohammad Junaed for a bullet wound have had to tie him to his bed to stop him jumping out of it in pain whenever the morphine starts to wear off.
The traumatised teenager should be in intensive care after he was shot in the head allegedly by soldiers in his native Myanmar just days ago. But his family, who fled the fighting across the border with little more than the clothes they were wearing, have no way of paying the fees.
“They [soldiers] shot him just above the eye and he is utterly traumatised. He is in enormous pain,” said the boy’s father, Mohammad Nabi, at the Chittagong Medical College Hospital where he is being treated.
It is the only hospital in the area with the facilities to treat serious gunshot wounds and has been utterly overwhelmed since fresh violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine state two weeks ago, triggering a flood of mostly Rohingya refugees across the border. It quickly ran out of beds, leaving many of the 70 Rohingya refugees being treated there to find a space on the floor.
Two have died, several are in a critical condition – and more are arriving all the time.