GENEVA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency UNHCR said Friday it has joined with a non-governmental global relief agency to put into service in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh the biggest human waste treatment facility ever built in a refugee settlement.
The UNHCR and the NGO Oxfam worked together on the facility, UN refugee agency spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said at a regular UN media briefing here.
The facility, funded by UNHCR, can process the waste of 150,000 people -- 40 cubic meters a day.
"It's roughly the equivalent of that needed for a population the size of Dijon in France, Savannah in the U.S. or, in Switzerland the City of Bern," said Mahecic.
UNHCR said that close to a million Rohingya refugees live in a complex of settlements in the Cox's Bazar area, Kutupalong, the largest refugee settlement in the world.
It is home to more than 630,000 refugees and managing the waste in this terrain requires innovative approaches, said the UN agency.
The speed and scope of the refugee crisis which began in August 2017 meant that most of the refugee sites grew spontaneously, resulting in limited available land suitable for latrine pits and wastewater treatment.
The ability to treat large volumes of waste on site, rather than having to transport it elsewhere, is a critical step to safe and sustainable disposal of such waste in emergencies.
The facility will significantly reduce health risks for refugees, and host communities and the likelihood of the outbreak of disease said Mahecic.
He cited more than 200,000 cases of acute diarrhea reported in the Rohingya camps in 2018, as well as respiratory infections and skin diseases like scabies -- all common in settings where sanitation and hygiene are challenges.
Bangladeshi authorities provided the site for the facility, and the project was delivered in collaboration with the government's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner's Office in Cox's Bazar.
