Rohingya refugees tearfully plead for UN Security Council help

KUTUPALONG REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh made emotional pleas to the UN Security Council on Sunday for help to return safely to their homes in neighbouring Myanmar and for justice over the reason they fled - accusations of killings, rapes and arson.

During a visit to an unclaimed strip of territory between the two states dubbed no-man’s land, several tearful women and girls threw themselves at British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce as they recounted what had happened to them.

“It shows the scale of the challenge as we try as a Security Council to find some way through that enables these poor people to go home,” Pierce said. “The sad thing is there’s nothing we can do right today that will make their distress any less.”

The Security Council envoys — who will travel to Myanmar on Monday and meet with its de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi — also visited a dry and dusty Kutupalong refugee camp that housed many of the nearly 700,000 Rohingya who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

“It’s quite overwhelming. Obviously the scale of this camp is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said deputy US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelley Currie. “It is going to be a disaster when the rains come.”

United Nations officials and aid groups have voiced concern that the coming monsoon season will worsen the humanitarian situation.

Myanmar’s Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye, who visited the camps in Bangladesh earlier this month, expressed concern about “very poor conditions.” Hundreds of refugees lined a road in Kutupalong camp on Sunday with signs that read “we demand justice” and “protected return to protected homeland.”

“We are standing here to demand justice as they (Myanmar military) have killed our men and tortured our women so much, so we are compelled to seek justice for those abuses,” Rohingya refugee Sajida Begum said.