Canada plans leading role with Rohingya crisis

Federal government is being asked to increase humanitarian effort

Canada’s top diplomat says her trip to Bangladesh shows that Canada is establishing a leadership role in the Rohingya crisis, which has led hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees to flee neighbouring Burma.

Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says the trip is also giving her a chance to hear firsthand what people in refugee camps have to say. Those are two of the recommendations laid out in a report on the ongoing Rohingya crisis by Bob Rae, Canada’s special envoy to Burma.

Rae’s report listed 17 recommendations for the Canadian government, including a larger humanitarian effort that would cost around $150 million a year and a “willingness to welcome refugees.”

Roughly 700,000 ethnic Rohingya people have fled to Bangladesh from Burma since last year to escape what the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.

Freeland made her comments Saturday from Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she has been meeting with government officials, aid groups and refugees on a four-day trip.

“We shared (Rae’s) report with many people here, and we plan to translate it both into Bengali and Rohingya so that people in Bangladesh and the Rohingya can read it in their own languages,” said Freeland. “A number of (recommendations) we are already implementing, and my trip here ... is one example of acting on Bob’s recommendation that Canada should be taking a leadership role.”

Freeland spent time in Bangladesh’s refugee camps, where she says she was able to hear what the Rohingya people had to say.

“The most valuable part of this trip is being able to talk to people who are being persecuted who are at the heart of this crisis,” Freeland said.

She added that the people had expressed “a desire for justice and accountability,” and the world needs to know exactly what is happening there.

Freeland said the Rohingya community in Canada has expressed a desire to be reunited with their family members who are in refugee camps.

“I think that is an issue we need to be looking at,” she said. “We can just imagine, if it were our brothers, sisters, uncles, who were in these dire straits, we would be desperate to bring them to join us in Canada.”