File talk:Kutupalong Refugee Camp (John Owens-VOA).jpg

Previously excellent, now grossly obsolete and inadequate

While this photo, when taken in early 2017, was an excellent representation of the Kutupalong camp, at the time, it is now grossly obsolete and inadequate. Several months after this photo was taken, Myanmar began its unprecedented explosion in violence against the Rohingya (described as "genocide" by U.N officials), driving most Rohingya from their country, with most of the refugees streaming into this Bangladesh refugee camp -- which exploded, almost overnight, from 2,000 acres hosting 200,000 long-term refugees, to 6,000 acres hosting nearly a million mostly-sudden refugees -- the world's largest refugee camp, according to numerous sources, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

More recent and relevant photos show a spread of kilometers of housing -- not the comparatively sturdy, widely-spaced structures depicted in this photo, but crude bamboo frames covered with blue plastic tarps, stuffed side-by-side against each other (as one reporter recently noted with precision: "You can hear the person in the shelter next to you breathing.")

Moreover, this newly exploding pile of suffering humanity, in fragile plastic-and-bamboo cages, is perched on steep hillsides, very conspicuously vulnerable to monsoon flooding and landslides, or even a gust of wind. While this photo blandly hints at the risk, in the early -- comparatively-level-ground -- sections of the camp, it fails utterly to show the gravity of the danger in the broader camp of today, mostly built on slopes too steep to have been accepted for use in the original camp, depicted here.

This is critically important in the role of essential representational information that this photo is reasonably expected to provide, today. 'This photo completely fails to show the camp as it is, now, with the now-far-greater dangers of flimsy little shelters, extreme overcrowding, massive scale, and steep topography -- which, in a combination conspicuously evident in many modern images, translate into radically different dangers in the face of fires, cyclones, monsoons, hillside collapses, stray elephants, disease and civil unrest -- all of which have brought death and destruction to the current camp, largely as a consequence of a very visibly different place than shown in this now-misleading photo.

Many post-2017 photos, from many major media, institution, and organization sources provide a far more valid, accurate, realistic and informative representation of the vast Kutupalong-Bukhahali refugee camp, as it's known today. This obsolete, now-very-misleading photo should be replaced by one of them.

PRIOR (NOW OBSOLETE, but notable) EXAMPLE:

• EXTREME OVERCROWDING
  "Kutupalong Refugee Camp (Maaz Hussain-VOA).jpg", December 22, 2016, by Maaz Hussain-VOA, in Wikimedia Commons (photo at: [1])

MORE-CURRENT, ACCURATE EXAMPLES:

• MASSIVE SCALE:
  "The Biggest Refugee Camp Braces for Rain: 'This Is Going to Be a Catastrophe'", March 3, 2018, in The New York Times Caption: "With a population of nearly 600,000, the settlement near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh is the largest refugee camp in the world. Credit...United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees": (photo from U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, at: [2])

• MASSIVE SCALE, CROWDING, FLIMSY SHELTERS:
  UN agencies helping Rohingya refugee camps brace for potentially devastating rains in southern Bangladesh, by UNHCR/Roger Arnold, Caption: "A view of the Kutupalong Extension refugee camp spanning over 3,000 acres in Cox’s Bazar, southern Bangladesh," February 27, 2018 in UN News, United Nations. (photo at: [3])

• EXTREMELY STEEP HILLS, CROWDING:
  "First coronavirus case among Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh confirmed", by United Press International (UPI), Caption (2018 photo): "An overview of the extended camps for the newly arrived Rohingya refugees at Kutupalong in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Feb. 12, 2018. The United Nations said Friday the first case of the coronavirus has been confirmed in a refugee at the camp," April 17, 2020 in UN News, United Nations. (Feb. 12, 2018 photo by Abir Abdullah/EPA-EFE at: [4])

• MASSIVE SCALE, EXTREMELY STEEP HILLS, CROWDING:
  "Myanmar Rohingya refugees brace for monsoon deluge in Bangladesh camps", May 6, 2018, in BBC News. Caption (video cover shot): "Watch: Drone footage from the DEC shows the extent of sprawling camps on the Bangladesh border," (photo from drone footage at: [5])

• MASSIVE SCALE, STEEP HILLS, CROWDING, FLIMSY SHELTERS:
  "24 Rohingyas arrested in Chittagong", September 21, 2019, in Dhaka Tribune Caption: "photo of a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar," (photo from Syed Zakir Hossain / Dhaka Tribune, at: [6])

ADJOINING BALUKHALI CAMP EXAMPLE: (NOTE: The two camps are now considered, essentially, one big camp: "Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion site")

• MASSIVE SCALE, EXTREMELY STEEP HILLS, CROWDING:
  "Rohingya crisis drone footage shows scale of refugee camp in Bangladesh – video", October 9, 2017, in The Guardian. Caption (video cover shot): "Aerial video shows the sprawling spread of makeshift tents and shacks at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Released by the Disasters Emergency Committee, the video was shot across several days in October. The arrival of more than half a million Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-dominated Myanmar since 25 August has put an immense strain on camps in Bangladesh, where there are growing fears of a disease epidemic," (photo from drone footage by Disasters Emergency Committee, at: [7] -- and higher-resolution version of the image, but with Guardian logo, at: [8])

2018-08-21 -1 yr on 700k Rohingyas live in Cox's Bazar- pop density 1_5x Manilla -Aid & Intl Devt Forum.htm — 以上未簽名的留言是由該使用者加入的： Penlite (留言 • 貢獻) 13:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Since this is the world's largest refugee camp, and home to roughly a million people, a more honest, accurate, realistic and current representation should be selected and anointed as the "best" image on the subject.

Respectfully: ~ Penlite (留言) 08:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)