Rohingya tearfully plead for UN Security Council help
US ENVOY SAYS SCALE OF REFUGEE CAMPS OVERWHELMING, RUSSIA ENVOY SAYS NO MAGIC WAND
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh made emotional pleas to the UN Security Council yesterday 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 today 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. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are living in temporary shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulins at Kutupalong, many on steep hills and in low-lying areas likely to be flooded.
Myanmar’s Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye, who visited the camps in Bangladesh earlier this month, expressed concern about “very poor conditions.” Several female refugees who met with council envoys accused Myanmar troops of gang-raping them, attacking their young children and killing their husbands. Myanmar has said that its operations in Rakhine were a legitimate response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents.
“This is very complicated issue, and it’s related with history, with ethnicity, with religions,” Chinese deputy UN.
“We don’t have any magic solution in the Security Council,” deputy Russian UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters in response to a question about whether the council would consider itself responsible for failing to address the crisis.
“The issue is still for us to promote bilateral ways to resolve this issue. We will try to convince both governments ... to engage in constructive negotiations, discussion,” he said.