essential needs such as food, shelter aid and other services, have been identified as major needs, particularly for male-heads of house seeking resources for their families. 8 Internews conducted two assessments, one inside Myanmar (December 2016) and one at the border with Bangladesh (August 2017) and found that: • The people stranded on the border do not have enough food or medicine. Many of them are still trying to cross the mountains, dense bush and rice fields to reach Bangladesh. Several of them were shot while trying to cross the border or were wounded in landmine explosions. • The majority of the people stranded at the borders are women and children, with no information available in their language about: health and hygiene; pre-natal and post-natal care (1000 children have been reported to be born in the no man’s land in the last 2 weeks); UXO and mine awareness; and how and where to access services. • During the last week, there has been an increase of cyber-war/hate speech activities in Myanmar connected with the position of Turkey in the Rohingya situation. • At the moment the limited amount of Rohingya language information circulating is heavily politicized and potentially influenced by extremist elements. This highlights the need for more reliable, balanced, accurate and verifiable sources of information both inside Myanmar and at the border. On the Bangladesh side, the local population is increasingly frustrated with the influx of refugees, which may lead to tensions in the long-term. • There is currently no mechanism in place to systematically assess needs and help people who are fleeing Myanmar, leaving starving and exhausted Rohingya families to fend for themselves under the open sky in Bangladesh. Most of the arrivals don’t know how to access food and medical aid. The existing camps in Cox’s Bazar are already overcrowded and the danger of waterborne diseases is high. The humanitarian situation in Bangladesh The Bangladesh government said this week that new arrivals would be registered at the border to help manage the influx. But in three days, local officials were only able to register about 1,500 Rohingyas, underlining the magnitude of the task. Last week, the United Nations appealed for $77 million to cope with the crisis but now UN officials on the ground say the need could be several times as high since the number of refugees has gone up dramatically. Paradoxically, the Bangladesh government is bemoaning its lack of resources to deal with the crisis when it has for years controlled access and restricted aid flow to the Rohingya. Three international NGOs who have been on the ground in Cox’s Bazar for years - Doctors without Borders (MSF) and Action Against Hunger (ACF) as well as Britain's Muslim Aid UK – have had to operate below the radar since Dhaka refused to give formal permission, arguing that they were creating a "pull factor" for refugees. 8 Ibid.