These women fight wildlife conflict in Bangladesh

Twenty-eight-year-old wildlife defenders Zenifar Azmiri and Sahrin Jahan have been woken up more than once in the middle of night.

Their camp in Cox’s Bazar, the largest refugee camp in Bangladesh bordering Myanmar, houses one million Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar.

Last week, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, visited Cox’s Bazar to draw attention to the plight of the Rohingya refugees and urge more support for Rohingya refugees.

Now the refugees face another challenge: up to 45 elephants pass through their camps, situated along the elephant migratory corridors, as they look for food and water.

“Elephants are very intelligent, and will always follow their traditional migratory corridors,” says Jahan. Since the refugee influx began in August 2017, at least 10 people have died in wildlife conflict, including a 12-year-old boy.

A joint United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) survey reveals that frequent elephant movement, mostly along the western boundary, is making refugees vulnerable to elephant invasions and attack.


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These women fight wildlife conflict in Bangladesh

Twenty-eight-year-old wildlife defenders Zenifar Azmiri and Sahrin Jahan have been woken up more than once in the middle of night.

Their camp in Cox’s Bazar, the largest refugee camp in Bangladesh bordering Myanmar, houses one million Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar.

Last week, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, visited Cox’s Bazar to draw attention to the plight of the Rohingya refugees and urge more support for Rohingya refugees.

Now the refugees face another challenge: up to 45 elephants pass through their camps, situated along the elephant migratory corridors, as they look for food and water.

“Elephants are very intelligent, and will always follow their traditional migratory corridors,” says Jahan. Since the refugee influx began in August 2017, at least 10 people have died in wildlife conflict, including a 12-year-old boy.

A joint United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) survey reveals that frequent elephant movement, mostly along the western boundary, is making refugees vulnerable to elephant invasions and attack.


To read the full article, click on the story title.

12 People Died After Elephants Ran Over a Refugee Camp

The elephants were stressed because the refugee camp blocked one of the routes that the animals have been using for centuries.


Twelve refugees were killed after frightened elephants ran over one of the largest refugee camps in the world, the BBC reported.

The animals destroyed many of the homes in a Bangkish camp in Bangladesh.

The problem is that huge refugee camps block elephants' migration routes. Animals get confused and stressed when they deviate from their routes.

The United Nations Association decided to set up observation towers and specially trained teams to guide the animals when they cross the camp. With this, they hope to avoid more death cases among both people and elephants. So far, no elephant has been injured.


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Fatal elephant attacks on Rohingya refugees push Bangladesh to act

Young boy becomes latest in series of casualties at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, which lies on migration route long used by elephants.

Bangaldesh has pledged to step up its response to a series of deadly elephant attacks at a refugee camp housing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees after a 12-year-old boy was trampled to death.

Shamsu Uddin died instantly when an elephant attacked him after he had fallen asleep while guarding paddy fields with friends in Uttar Shilkhali village in the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.


Three days later, a young girl was critically injured when elephants attacked Nayapara refugee camp, to the south of Cox’s Bazar.

Both attacks occurred outside Kutupalong, temporary home to 700,000 Rohingya refugees. The rising number of fatal elephant attacks – at least a dozen in the six months from October 2017 – tell a wider, tragic story of how deforestation, monsoons and the refugee crisis have left some of the world’s most vulnerable people at the mercy of wild animals.

Crowded together on a bare hillside at the mercy of the approaching rainy season, residents of the sprawling Kutupalong camp – mainly Rohingya muslims who have fled a brutal campaign of violence in Myanmar in August – already live in difficult conditions. But it also sits on several important migration corridors between Myanmar and Bangladesh that elephants have used for centuries.


This year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) began a programme to raise awareness, setting up 56 watchtowers and 30 volunteer elephant response teams to warn residents when elephants enter the camp. As part of the initiative, people are made aware of what they should do if they encounter an elephant.




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