Rohingyas, volunteering as Elephant Response Team (ERT) members in the giant Kutupalong refugee site, will be taking part in events in the settlement in Cox's Bazar district, today to highlight International Day for Biological Diversity, reports UNB. The ERTs were formed and trained under a joint project by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its partner, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bangladesh to reduce incidents involving elephants coming into conflict with refugees in the world's largest refugee settlement.

Since the Rohingya influx into Bangladesh last August, there have been at least 13 deaths resulting from human-elephant incidents in the main Kutupalong-Balukhali refugee settlement, said the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Some 350 Elephant Response Team members will travel from 3 different areas in the camp to congregate and take part in rallies, said the UNHCR yesterday.

ERTs of Camps 1, 3, 4 and 17, carrying banners with messages on environmental awareness and biodiversity conservation, will travel from camp 5, which begins at 11am. The colourful procession will move again, ending at the bamboo made elephant watchtower in Camp 3.

Huge bamboo elephants, created by the refugees, will also be used as part of the event. Officials representing the Bangladesh Forest Department and the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner's Office (RRRC) will join the event.

The highly congested refugee site, which houses around 600,000 refugees who fled Myanmar, used to be forest land but is now crowded with tens of thousands of refugee shelters and services. The site lies along one of Asian elephants' main migratory routes between Myanmar and Bangladesh.