More than half the refugees fleeing Myanmar are children

The number of people who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh over the last three weeks has now crossed 400,000, according to the United Nations. If that’s not bad enough, here’s something even more troubling—the majority of them are children.

Unicef, the UN’s child rights agency, estimates that some 60% of those fleeing a crackdown by the Myanmar military in the wake of an attack by militants on police posts are kids.

The large numbers of children have led the Bangladesh health ministry to embark on a vaccination campaign, supported by Unicef and the World Health Organization, focused on some 150,000 children who are 15 or younger. The seven-day campaign against the most contagious childhood diseases, including measles, suggest the crisis is being treated differently this year by Bangladesh, at least when it comes to immunization. In general, aid agencies have only been able to provide limited help to Rohingya arrivals who were not part of the registered population of the country’s two official Rohingya refugee camps (a stance seen in other nations too). But in the wake of measles outbreaks in the area last year and this year, particularly among those from Myanmar, immunization appears increasingly to be a priority.