As evening falls, 15-year-old Noro Nobi shivers in the cold.

He shares a shelter made of bamboo sticks and tarpaulin at Block-D4 of Kutupalong Rohingya camp with three siblings, aged between six and nine.

Without warm clothes or blankets, they have to deal with the coldest months of the year -December and January.

Nobi and his siblings fled a crackdown by Myanmar army that killed his parents on August 26 last year and landed at the camp in Ukhia upazila.

"The cold has intensified over the last few weeks. As dawn approaches, we are left shivering," Nobi told The Daily Star.

Gulshan Ara, a Rohingya living

in the same camp, said her shack has holes and tears, allowing the chilly breeze to enter. She lost her husband to the Myanmar military offensive last year.

"It is unbearable My three children wake up in the middle of the night because of the cold. I have only one blanket that barely covers two of my three children."

Mohammad Shohidul Islam, meteorologist at Bangladesh Meteorology Department in Cox's Bazar, said the temperature is expected to dip further in December by 1 -2 degrees Celsius.

There is also a probability of two cold waves this winter, where temperatures will dip below 10 degrees Celsius, he added. The monthly average for November was 15 to 20 degrees Celsius.

Brae, a non-government

organisation, conducted a survey titled “Winter Need Assessment" in which they found 56 percent of the shelters need repairs, 21 percent of Rohingya households need blankets and 65 percent of the families are in need of warm clothes.

The survey was conducted in October last month with the help of 39 block in-charges (Majhi) who look after 85,149 households in 28 camps.

Surot Alam, a local supervisor of camp-1 at Kutupalong, said the Rohingya families sold the blankets they had received last year to pay for other necessities.

Now they are exposed to the cold. This makes the children especially susceptible to various cold-related diseases, he added. Md Shah Alam, technical head of Brae's Humanitarian Crisis Management Programme, said they carried out the study to assess the needs and preparedness of the Rohingya community forwinter under the Communication for Development project.

"Earlier, we studied the monsoon preparedness in Rohingya camps and got good results after taking steps based on it."

If all aid agencies and take preparations to provide services, it would make the camp comfortable for Rohingyas, he added.

Refugee, Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner Mohammed Abul Kalam said, "We got assurance from the Indian government that they will provide blankets for one lakh Rohingya families. We are taking initiatives in coordination with donor agencies to find a way to deal with winter needs."

He said they have, in a small scale, started distributing warm clothes among Rohingya families and hope to receive the Indian assistance this week.