International organisations have praised Qatar Charity (QC) for providing cooking facilities for more than 27,000 Rohingya refugees who were transferred to the island of Bhashan Char, a statement said Sunday.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) welcomed this support and said in a report that the transition from the use of firewood to the use of cooking gas reduces the fuel crisis for the Rohingya refugees and reduces environmental pollution.
QC teams distributed bottled gas to refugee families, in co-ordination with local government agencies and the UNHCR. Aisha Begum, a beneficiary, thanked QC. "This aid has helped us a lot now, we do not have any problems with cooking."
Another beneficiary, Abdul Qadir said: "We were in Cox's Bazar camp collecting firewood from the forest so that we could cook food, and that was very hard and dangerous work for the refugees, but now we cook food easily."
Gobeda Begum, also a beneficiary, said: “Now, thanks to the help of donors in Qatar and Qatar Charity, we are eating clean food away from the fumes that caused us harm."
Bangladesh hosts nearly one million Rohingya refugees, and QC is working in co-ordination and co-operation with the government to respond to the humanitarian needs resulting from displacement. In 2021, about 30,000 refugees were transferred to Bhasan Char Island in the Noakali region as part of a project designed by the Bangladesh government to reduce overcrowding in the camps.
At the beginning of the crisis, QC implemented interventions in various fields, such as building shelters, providing food relief, healthcare, and providing clean drinking water. More than 100,000 refugees benefited from QC's projects last year alone, the statement added.
