DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina headed for the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday to plead for global help coping with the Rohingya crisis, as the refugee deluge escaping a crackdown in Myanmar topped 400,000.

The prime minister left a day after her government summoned the Myanmar envoy for the third time to protest over its neighbor’s actions. Hasina is to demand more pressure on Myanmar during talks in New York.

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed by Rohingya Muslims since violence erupted in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar’s Rakhine state on August 25.

The United Nations said Saturday that the total number of people to have entered Bangladesh having fled the unrest had now reached 409,000, a leap of 18,000 in a day.

Conditions are worsening in the border town of Cox’s Bazar where the influx has added to pressures on Rohingya camps already overwhelmed with 300,000 people from earlier waves of refugees.

The UN said two children and a woman were killed in a “rampage” when a private group handed clothes near a camp on Friday.

Hasina is to speak at the UN on Thursday.

“She will seek immediate cessation of violence in Rakhine state in Myanmar and ask the UN secretary general to send a fact-finding mission to Rakhine,” a spokesman for the prime minister, Nazrul Islam, told AFP.

“She will also call the international community and the UN to put pressure on Myanmar for the repatriation of all the Rohingya refugees to their homeland in Myanmar,” he said.

Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali said: “We will continue international pressure on the Myanmar government to immediately end its ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.”

As tensions mount between the neighbors, the foreign ministry on Friday summoned the Myanmar charge d’affaires in Dhaka to protest alleged violations of its airspace by Myanmar drones and helicopter.

The ministry warned that the three violations between September 10 and 14 could lead to “unwarranted consequences.” Myanmar did not immediately comment.

The Bangladeshi government earlier protested to the embassy over the planting of landmines near their border, which have killed several Rohingya, and the treatment of the refugees.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has also said Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya could amount to ethnic cleansing.

The deaths of the three refugees backed warnings by UN agencies and other relief groups that the crisis could get out of control.

The World Health Organization and UN children’s agency on Saturday launched vaccination campaigns against measles, rubella and polio. They estimate that 60 percent of the new arrivals are children.

Most Rohingya, who spent more than a week trekking cross-country from Rakhine to reach the Bangladesh border, have found existing camps overflowing and have instead settled on muddy roadsides.

Many families do not have a shelter over their heads and refugees have been fighting for food and water deliveries.

“The needs are seemingly endless and the suffering is deepening,” said UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado.

Outside the giant Balukali camp, Jamila Khatun, 60, sat under a blue plastic bin bag held up by bamboo poles with her children and grandchildren as she recounted her journey to Bangladesh.

She said she handed over her jewellery to a Bangladesh boatman two days ago to get across the river frontier from Myanmar.

“We walked by night for three or four days to avoid the military and then came over by boat.

“We don’t know what we will do or where we will live but if people here feed us we will stay. We don’t want to go back,” she told AFP.

Nur Khan Liton, a respected Bangladeshi rights activist working with the refugees in Cox’s Bazar, told AFP: “Refugees are still pouring in. But there is no attempt to bring discipline and order in the aid management.”

Liton said the Rohingya “have become victims of muggings and extortion” and that cases of diarrhoea are spreading. “I heard that one Rohingya boy has died of diarrhoea.”

The government has put the army in charge of ferrying foreign relief aid from airports to Cox’s Bazar. It also plans to build 14,000 shelters, which it hopes will be enough for 400,000 people. Each shelter can house six refugee families.

Hasina has ordered the shelters erected within 10 days, Bangladesh’s disaster management secretary Shah Kama told AFP.

The authorities have sent police reinforcements to Cox’s Bazar to protect Buddhist temples in case of a radical Muslim backlash.</s>Some 600,000 Rohingya children could flee to Bangladesh by the end of the year, a relief group said Sunday, highlighting the scale of the humanitarian crisis triggered by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

More than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have now arrived in Bangladesh from their Buddhist dominated homeland to escape violence that the United Nations says could be ethnic cleansing.

According to the UN, more than half of the refugees are children, and more than 1,100 have arrived alone after trekking mud roads and hills for days.

"That number could rise beyond one million by the end of the year if the influx continues, including about 600,000 children, according to UN agencies," Mark Pierce, the Bangladesh chief of Save the Children charity, said.

The UN has also said it was possible that all the estimated 1.1 million Rohingya could flee Rakhine.

Bangladesh and relief agencies are struggling to cope with new arrivals sheltering on roadsides, hills and open spaces close to existing camps around Cox's Bazar, which borders Myanmar.

Aid agencies have said thousands of Rohingya were half-starving and a major health emergency could break out.

Bangladesh has announced it will build 14,000 shelters for some 400,000 refugees but has said it was also readying a desolate island where many could be relocated.

Pierce said his group was particularly worried about the traumatised children and orphans who have arrived alone in Bangladesh.

"This is a real concern as these children are in an especially vulnerable position, being at increased risk of exploitation and abuse, as well as things like child trafficking," he said.

"Some children have witnessed violence and killing. Some have been shot at, others have seen their homes set on fire. Some have reportedly watched their parents being killed," he said.

The charity said it is setting up safe spaces in the camps for vulnerable children.

They would receive 24-hour support and protection while attempts are made to find family members, it said.

Bangladesh authorities say they are also preparing special measures to care for Rohingya orphans.</s>Image copyright AFP Image caption Bangladeshi security forces are already guarding Rohingya camps near the border

Bangladesh is limiting the movement of more than 400,000 Rohingya migrants who have fled from neighbouring Myanmar.

They must stay in fixed places allocated to them by the government and not travel elsewhere, police say.

Bangladesh also announced plans to build shelters for up to 400,000 people near the city of Cox's Bazar.

The mainly Muslim Rohingyas have been fleeing a Myanmar government offensive since last month, which the UN says could amount to ethnic cleansing.

Rights groups have accused the military of burning Rohingya villages.

But the army says it is responding to attacks by militants and denies it is targeting civilians.

Meanwhile, a fresh diplomatic row between Bangladesh and Myanmar has broken out over alleged violations of Bangladeshi airspace in the past week.

What are the new restrictions?

In a statement, Bangladeshi police said Rohingyas would not be allowed to travel anywhere outside of their allocated homes, not even to live with family or friends.

Transport operators and drivers have also been urged not to carry refugees, with landlords told not to rent out any property to them.

Analysts say the government wants to stop the Rohingya from disappearing into the general population and to keep them visible, in the hope of returning them to Myanmar - or even a third country.

What do we know about the new shelters?

According to Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper, the new shelters will be on a site covering about 8 sq km (3 sq miles) of land, close to established camps which have been overwhelmed by arrivals from Myanmar.

A total of 8,500 temporary toilets will be built and 14 "makeshift warehouses" will be set up near the shelters, the paper says.

The new shelters are meant to be built within 10 days.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Many Rohingya migrants live in improvised camps

Image caption The violence has been concentrated in Myanmar's Rakhine area

An ambitious plan, but is it plausible?

Jonathan Head, BBC Southeast Asia correspondent

Bangladesh faces a colossal task accommodating the now more than 400,000 Rohingyas who have fled Myanmar. It rightly demands a lot more international support. And that support has been slow in coming.

One reason is the dramatic surge in the numbers of new arrivals in a very short period of time. Another is the politics of aid in southern Bangladesh.

The UN refugee agency is not allowed to deal with the large numbers of Rohingya who are living outside of official refugee camps as they do not want these people to have refugee status. Instead that role has been given to the International Organisation for Migration, a UN-related agency with expertise in assisting and monitoring migrants. The UN, with its proven "cluster system", is normally tasked with coordinating large-scale humanitarian emergencies.

In this context, the plan to build 14,000 homes, and 8,000 latrines is ambitious. The ten-day timescale set by the government seems unrealistic. In reality, many tens of thousands of Rohingyas are surviving with no shelter and little food, with more arriving every day. No-one has yet drawn up a plausible plan for assisting them all.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Jonathan Head went on a government-organised trip to Rakhine state last week

How is the crisis affecting Myanmar-Bangladesh relations?

Tensions have been mounting, with Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina heading to the UN General Assembly on Saturday to ask for more pressure to be put on Myanmar to help deal with the crisis.

The UN Security Council has appealed to Myanmar to stop the violence but no sanctions have been imposed.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC speaks to Rohingya who say they were injured in landmine blasts

Bangladesh has also lodged a formal protest with Myanmar about its use of military drones and helicopters which, it alleges, have violated Bangladeshi airspace on three days in the past week.

Bangladesh described their use as "provocative". Myanmar denies the allegation.

The two countries have also locked horns over the issue of landmines, with Myanmar denying Bangladesh accusations that its army is planting them on the border to prevent refugees from returning.

The BBC has spoken to Rohingya Muslims who were maimed after apparently stepping on landmines as they fled, but it was not clear when the mines were laid or by whom.

How did we get here?

The violence began on 25 August when Rohingya militants attacked police posts in northern Rakhine, killing 12 security personnel.

Rohingyas who have fled Myanmar since then say the military responded with a brutal campaign, burning villages and attacking civilians in a bid to drive them out.

The Rohingya, a stateless mostly Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Rakhine, have long experienced persecution in Myanmar, which says they are illegal immigrants.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Watch: Who are the Rohingya?

Some who fled from Rakhine state told the BBC earlier this month about killings, rape and even massacres, while inside Rakhine, a BBC crew witnessed charred homes inside Rakhine.

A new Human Rights Watch report released on Friday accused the Myanmar military of an "ethnic cleansing campaign" and detailed scores of villages targeted with arson attacks.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Fergal Keane spoke to Buddhists in Myanmar's second city, Mandalay

Myanmar officials blame the Rohingya insurgents for the violence, with government spokesman Zaw Htay urging displaced people to find refuge in temporary camps set up in Rakhine state.

However, Mr Htay said Myanmar would not be able to allow all those who fled to Bangladesh to return.</s>COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) - Bangladeshi authorities are trying to restrict the movement of Muslim Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar into crowded border camps and have started immunizing tens of thousands of children against diseases.

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed with more than 400,000 Rohingya who fled their homes in the last three weeks amid a crisis the U.N. describes as ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, wo has lambasted Myanmar for "atrocities," left Dhaka to address the annual U.N. gathering in New York.

Abdus Salam, a doctor in a state-run hospital in Cox's Bazar district, says that some 150,000 children will be immunized over seven days for measles, rubella and polio. U.N. says there are some 240,000 children in dire conditions.

Police meanwhile are checking that the refugees don't spread out to nearby towns.

Rohingya Muslim children, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, swing on a tree with clothes handed out to them near Mushani refugee camp, in Bangladesh, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. The U.N. has described the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing, a term that describes an organized effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

A Rohingya Muslim woman, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, serves dinner to her son inside their temporary shelter at Taiy Khali refugee camp, in Bangladesh, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. United Nations agencies say an estimated 409,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when deadly attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on police posts prompted Myanmar's military to launch "clearance operations" in Rakhine state. Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Rohingya Muslim women, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, talk as they sit inside their temporary shelter at Taiy Khali refugee camp, in Bangladesh, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. The U.N. has described the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing, a term that describes an organized effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

A Rohingya Muslim boy Shahidul Alam, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh with his family, pauses for a photograph as he walks back after collecting water from a handpump near Mushani refugee camp, Bangladesh, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. The U.N. has described the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing, a term that describes an organized effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

A Rohingya Muslim woman Mustafa Khatoon is given water by a passerby as her daughter Hazra Begum waits for help to take her to a doctor near Mushani refugee camp, Bangladesh, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. The U.N. has described the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing, a term that describes an organized effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)</s>Rohingya men stand in a line at a centre to register for a temporary card issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur in this February 27, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Samsul Said

BUKIT MERTAJAM, Malaysia (Reuters) - Abul Kassim, a Rohingya asylum seeker, was snatched from his home in the northern Malaysian state of Penang on Jan. 12. The next morning, his beaten and bloodied body was found.

That day, police moved on the 40-year-old’s alleged killers. Raiding a house in the neighboring state of Kedah, they rescued 17 Rohingya migrants being held against their will, according to a statement by Penang police.

Eight alleged traffickers from Malaysia, Myanmar and Bangladesh were arrested.

The murder of Abul Kassim casts rare light on what Rohingya activists say is widespread abuse by human traffickers in Malaysia, who are willing to use extreme methods to protect their lucrative but illegal business.

Abul Kassim regularly supplied police with information on the activities of traffickers, said Abdul Hamid, president of the Kuala Lumpur-based Rohingya Society in Malaysia.

Since 2012, more than 100,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims have fled violence and poverty in Myanmar. Most travel in traffickers’ boats to Thailand, where they are held by traffickers in squalid jungle camps before a ransom is paid.

Relatively wealthy Malaysia to the south is the destination for most Rohingya who flee. For some, it is far from safe.

Relatives and witnesses told Reuters of three abductions in Penang in 2013 and 2014, from a home, a coffee shop and the street. In addition, a Rohingya man was confined and tortured after being brought by traffickers through Thailand.

Three of the four cases ended in murder, they said.

Fortify Rights, a Southeast Asia-based rights group, documented another three suspected killings of Rohingya by traffickers last year.

Banned from legally working and fearful of police harassment, few victims bring their case to authorities. Those who do say police have taken little action.

Confirming cases is difficult. Local media give the issue little coverage and Penang state police did not respond to further questions about Abul Kassim’s killing. National police spokeswoman Asmawati Ahmad did not reply to Reuters’ questions on that case or other suspected Rohingya murders.

Interviewed by Reuters in late 2014, Penang police chief Abdul Rahim Hanafi denied traffickers had killed any Rohingya in the state that year.

Police quoted in the local media said Abul Kassim’s killing was likely to be connected to a money dispute.

A Kuala Lumpur-based Rohingya leader, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, said quantifying crimes was difficult due to the power and reach of traffickers in northern Malaysia.

“If we try to get information about the traffickers, they will simply target the person who tries to get information. We are not safe,” he said.

Such cases include the alleged abduction and murder of Rohingya cousins Harun and Sayed Noor in 2013 and 2014, according to witnesses interviewed by Reuters.

Harun, 35, had his first run-in with traffickers in early 2013, when he was kidnapped from a Penang shop and held for a week for a ransom of 7,000 ringgit ($1,942), recalled his uncle, Mohammad Salim, 50.

After his release, Harun lodged a complaint with police and fled into hiding, Salim said.

In retaliation, traffickers took his cousin Sayed Noor, aged about 30, and held him as barter for Harun and 50,000 ringgit, Salim said. Several months later, Sayed turned up dead, his body showing signs of torture and mutilation.

In early 2014, the traffickers caught up with Harun.

Months later, his uncle, Salim, received a call from a Thai mobile number, telling him to leave town.

“The trafficker told me himself he had killed Harun.”

A similarly chilling message was sent with the alleged murder last March of Sadek Akbar, 17, who had traveled from Myanmar with the help of traffickers.

After passing through a Thai camp and being ransomed for release, Sadek was imprisoned in a safehouse in Penang. Traffickers then demanded 2,000 ringgit for Sadek’s release, his uncle, Altaf Hussain, told Reuters.

“We couldn’t afford it, so they beat him to death and dropped him by the side of the road,” Altaf, 48, told Reuters.

Altaf’s account of retrieving the body from hospital was verified by another Rohingya witness and a Malaysian journalist, who both declined to be named.

Hampering a full account of the problem is Malaysia’s patchy record of protecting millions of migrants, including nearly 150,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers living there.

Relatives of victims are reluctant to report crimes to police, fearing months of detention for migration violations and shakedowns for bribes, according to Fortify Rights executive director Matthew Smith.

“There are millions of dollars being made through the trafficking of Rohingya. It’s unsurprising that illicit profits of that magnitude would bring out violent behavior,” he said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declined to comment on specific criminal cases, but has received “regular reports of abuse, intimidation and exploitation of Rohingya refugees,” said spokeswoman Yante Ismail.

“Under Malaysian law, all refugees are treated as undocumented and illegal migrants, and there is no national system in place to provide them with protection.”</s>COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladeshi authorities are trying to restrict the movement of Muslim Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar into crowded border camps and have started immunizing tens of thousands of children against diseases.

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed with more than 400,000 Rohingya who fled their homes in the last three weeks amid a crisis the U.N. describes as ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, wo has lambasted Myanmar for “atrocities,” left Dhaka to address the annual U.N. gathering in New York.

Abdus Salam, a doctor in a state-run hospital in Cox’s Bazar district, says that some 150,000 children will be immunized over seven days for measles, rubella and polio. U.N. says there are some 240,000 children in dire conditions.

Police meanwhile are checking that the refugees don’t spread out to nearby towns.</s>Police issue order prohibiting more than 400,000 Rohingya refugees from leaving areas designated by the government.

Bangladesh has restricted the movement of Rohingya refugees, banning them from leaving designated areas in the country to which over 400,000 have fled from violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

Police said on Saturday that they have issued an order prohibiting Rohingya refugees from leaving the areas and camps the government has designated for them in the border district.

"They should stay in the designated camps until they return to their country," Sahely Ferdous, a police spokeswoman, said in a statement.

She said Rohingya were also asked not to take shelter in the homes of their friends or acquaintances and locals have been asked not to rent houses to the refugees.

"They cannot travel from one place to another by roads, railways or waterways," the order said, adding that bus and lorry drivers and workers have been asked not to carry the Rohingya.

Police said they have set up check posts and surveillance in key transit points to make sure the refugees don't travel to the other parts of the country.

According to the state-run news agency, new camps were also being set up to help house the influx of refugees.

The restrictions were announced as Bangladesh authorities said they faced an "unprecedented crisis" due to the influx of 409,000 refugees since last month, according to UN figures.

Dozens of refugees were found in three towns hundreds of kilometres from the Myanmar frontier, stoking fears that thousands of Rohingya Muslims will move from the border region into the the mainland of Bangladesh.

READ MORE - Who are the Rohingya?

Conditions were already worsening in Bangladesh's southeastern border district of Cox's Bazar where the majority of refugees are living in squalid conditions after fleeing Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakhine State.

The latest round of violence began on August 25 after Rohingya fighters attack more than 30 police and army posts, prompting a security crackdown on the Rohingya.

Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as Myanmar's military, have faced international condemnation over its treatment of the Rohingya.

The mainly Muslim minority, who live primarily in Rakhine State, is not recognised as an ethnic group in Myanmar, despite having lived there for generations.They have been denied citizenship and are stateless.

‘We don’t want to go back’

Most Rohingya, who spent more than a week trekking cross-country from Rakhine to reach the Bangladesh border, have found existing camps overflowing and have instead settled on muddy roadsides.

Many families do not have a shelter over their heads and refugees have been fighting for food and water deliveries.

Jamila Khatun, a Rohingya refugee, outside the giant Balukali camp told AFP news agency that she handed over her jewellery to a Bangladesh boatman two days ago to get across the river frontier from Myanmar.

"We walked by night for three or four days to avoid the military and then came over by boat," she said.

"We don't know what we will do or where we will live but if people here feed us we will stay. We don't want to go back."

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed by the arrivals Rohingya Muslims - the highest number of refugees to have entered the country in decades - since the violence erupted last month. There were already 300,000 Rohingya refugees in makeshift camps from earlier waves of refugees before the latest influx.

READ MORE: My name is Muhammed Ason, I am Rohingya

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who visited the camps earlier this week, departed for New York City on Saturday to plead for international help and demand more pressure on Myanmar during talks at the UN General Assembly.

"She will seek immediate cessation of violence in Rakhine State in Myanmar and ask the UN secretary-general to send a fact-finding mission to Rakhine," a spokesman for the prime minister, Nazrul Islam, told AFP.

"She will also call the international community and the UN to put pressure on Myanmar for the repatriation of all the Rohingya refugees to their homeland in Myanmar," he said.

READ MORE: Bangladesh medics struggle to cope with Rohingya influx

Bangladesh has been criticised for turning back hundreds of Rohingya refugees at its border with Myanmar, as well as not providing enough aid to the refugees.

The government has put the army in charge of ferrying foreign relief aid from airports to Cox's Bazar.

It also plans to build 14,000 shelters, which it hopes will be enough for 400,000 people. Each shelter can house six refugee families.

Hasina has ordered the shelters erected within 10 days, Bangladesh's disaster management secretary Shah Kama told AFP.

As tensions mount between the neighbours, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said Bangladesh "will continue international pressure on the Myanmar government to immediately end its ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya".

The foreign ministry on Friday summoned the Myanmar charge d'affaires in Dhaka to protest at alleged violations of its airspace by Myanmar drones and helicopter.

INTERACTIVE: Who is selling weapons to Myanmar?

The ministry warned that the three violations between September 10 and 14 could lead to "unwarranted consequences". Myanmar did not immediately comment.

The Bangladesh government earlier protested to the embassy over reports that Myanmar was planting landmines near their border, which have killed several Rohingya, and the treatment of the refugees.

Mahmood has also called the violence in Rakhine "a genocide".</s>Rohingya Muslim children, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, follow a truck carrying people throwing chocolates at them near Mushani refugee camp in Bangladesh, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. United Nations agencies say an estimated 409,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when deadly attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on police posts prompted Myanmar's military to launch "clearance operations" in Rakhine state. Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)</s>COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladeshi authorities are trying to restrict the movement of Muslim Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar into crowded border camps and have started immunizing tens of thousands of children against diseases.

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed with more than 400,000 Rohingya who fled their homes in the last three weeks amid a crisis the U.N. describes as ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, wo has lambasted Myanmar for “atrocities,” left Dhaka to address the annual U.N. gathering in New York.

Abdus Salam, a doctor in a state-run hospital in Cox’s Bazar district, says that some 150,000 children will be immunized over seven days for measles, rubella and polio. U.N. says there are some 240,000 children in dire conditions.

Police meanwhile are checking that the refugees don’t spread out to nearby towns.</s>Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh (CNN) One woman and two children were killed in a stampede for unofficial handouts of clothing near a Rohingya refugee camp, aid agencies say.

The three people -- whose names and ages have not been released -- died Friday as supplies were being thrown from relief trucks on the road in the Balukhali Pan Bazar near the Kutupalong refugee camp, the Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) in Bangladesh said.

The deaths are a stark reminder of the desperation in the camps near the border with Myanmar, where an estimated 409,000 refugees have arrived since August 25, more than doubling the existing Rohingya refugee population.

"I could not bring anything. My clothes were given to me by someone here," said Rohingya refugee Romiza Begum. "I lost everything. There is nothing left in my home in Myanmar. Everything is destroyed."

The exodus began after Rohingya militants killed 12 security officials at border posts in Myanmar's Rakhine State, resulting in an intensified government "clearance operation." Amnesty International has accused Myanmar's military of deliberately torching Muslim-minority Rohingya villages near the Bangladesh border in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing." The government says it is targeting terrorists.

Unofficial aid distributions are often carried out by sympathetic locals in Bangladesh, who pile bags full of donations on the back of trucks and then throw them out as they drive through the camps.

CNN witnessed several of these aid drops in and around the Kutupalong refugee camp. When the trucks are spotted on the road they spark a frenzied dash as crowds of desperate Rohingya refugees race towards them, through mud and traffic, in the hope of catching some supplies.

"We just want to help," one man throwing out aid told CNN.

Relief agencies appreciate the efforts of those trying to help, but say this is a hazardous way to do it.

Corinne Ambler, spokeswoman for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) Bangladesh, said it is better for refugees to use official aid distribution points because the truck method is too dangerous.

Refugees who manage to catch tossed supplies sometimes end up in a fight to keep them. Those who fail often climb onto the truck to try to grab anything they can, but men on the back of the truck have sticks and beat them down. Children are most in danger as the truck drivers often don't see them, Ambler said.

Many of the Rohingya refugees are sick, hungry and dehydrated by the time they arrive. Many have malnutrition or diarrhea, and some arrive with gunshot wounds, burns or land-mine injuries they sustained escaping Myanmar.

"We came to Bangladesh because life back home was very dangerous. Bullets were flying around like rain," one 60-year-old Rohingya refugee told CNN. "I fell down when I was running away and hurt my knee. I can't walk or sit properly now."

The aid agencies working in the area -- including the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), the World Food Program and other UN agencies -- are forced to prioritize their limited supplies by focusing on the most vulnerable people, such as pregnant women and babies, the sick and the elderly. Ambler says the people they are serving are only "a drop in the ocean" compared to the thousands who need aid.

"I can only describe it as wall-to-wall human suffering. I've never seen anything like it," Ambler, the IFRC spokeswoman, told CNN. "We can't cope with the numbers that are here now. I don't know how we're going to cope if more come."

Three thousand families, or about 15,000 people, lined up on Friday for an official aid distribution organized by Red Crescent volunteers from Bangladesh and the UAE.

Alongside long queues of mostly women and elderly people waiting in the blazing sun, groups of men stood around looking hungry and desperate. Families headed by men and those with fewer children are a low priority, forcing many men to beg in the street.

"We have no food and no clothes. We are homeless," said refugee Mohammed Harun. "Everything, destroyed by the military. Now we are without food or blankets."

Aid agencies struggle to keep up

CNN cannot verify the stories of the Rohingya refugees, as access to Rakhine State is heavily restricted for journalists.

Even for the families who receive some aid, it's only just enough to keep them alive. Most aid packs include milk, juice, some semolina and some high-energy biscuits. Most of the refugees don't have any cooking equipment or electricity, so there's little point providing food that requires cooking.

Some refugees are too weak to carry food home and have to rely on volunteers to help them.

Aid agencies are ramping up their responses as fast as they can, but with thousands more refugees arriving every day, it's a race against time just to keep people in these camps alive.

"It's a challenge for everyone to scale up quickly," Ambler said. "Finally, people are starting to realize what the situation is."
Bangladesh announces plans to build a giant refugee camp the size of a small city to house nearly 400,000 Rohingya refugees.