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Since the high level violence against minority Muslim community Rohingya began on August 25th, nearly 90,000 members have fled to Bangladesh, mostly as a result of the widespread rape, arson and murder by the Myanmar army.

Vivian Tan, regional spokesperson for UNHCR, told Al Jazeera on Monday that women, children and the elderly made up the bulk of the 87,000 who had crossed into Bangladesh since violence erupted on August 25.

"We're seeing many pregnant women, new-born babies and the elderly make their way to relief camps on the Bangladeshi side of the border," she said.

"Sadly we're also hearing from many of them that they haven't eaten in days."

There are also concerns that because the Bangladeshi government has not opened the borders officially, the vast majority of these migrants would be unrecorded.

According to Vivian Tan, the latest figure of 87,000 Rohingya did not include refugees who had fled in previous decades or those who had set up temporary shelter in "no-man's land", an area between the Bangladesh and Myanmar border.

"Since the 1970s, only 34,000 Rohingya have been registered with the UN in Bangladesh," Tan said, with "estimates of unregistered refugees in the hundreds of thousands."