Bangladesh PM visits Rohingya refugee camp
UKHiYa: The Bangladeshi prime minister visited a struggling refugee camp that has absorbed some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled recent violence in Myanmar – a crisis she said that left her speechless.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina demanded that Myanmar “take steps to take their nationals back”, and assured temporary aid until that happened.
“We will not tolerate injustice,” she said at a rally at the Kutupalong refugee camp, near the border town of Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar district.
On Monday night, she lambasted Buddhist-majority Myanmar for “atrocities” that she said had reached a level beyond description, telling lawmakers she had “no words to condemn Myanmar”.
At least 313,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh since Aug 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts, prompting Myanmar’s military to retaliate with what it called “clearance operations” to root out the rebels.
The crisis has drawn sharp criticism from around the world.
Germany has halted several aid projects with Myanmar in protest, and Iran’s Supreme Leader called the killing of Muslims a political disaster for Myanmar.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also urged other Muslim countries yesterday to “increase political, economic and commercial pressures” on Myanmar to stop the violence.
The UN human rights chief said Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya minority was facing what “seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
UN rights investigators have been barred from entering the country.
“The Myanmar government should stop pretending that the Rohingya are setting fire to their own homes and laying waste to their own villages,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said on Monday in Geneva, calling it a “complete denial of reality”.
Meanwhile, a Rohingya villager said security forces arrived Monday in Pa Din village, firing guns, setting homes on fire and driving hundreds of Rohingya to flee.
“People were scared and running out of the village,” the villager said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
Meanwhile, Dhaka has appealed for international support to move the Rohingya to the island as the impoverished country confronts a growing crisis over where to house an influx that has mounted following a military crackdown in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The surge has overwhelmed the Bangladesh authorities, who are scrambling to find land to build more camps, including on the inhospitable and uninhabited Bhasan Char island – despite reluctance on the part of Rohingya leaders and UN officials.
A police official in the region said that the island was susceptible to tidal flooding once or twice a year.
“I think the island needs massive infrastructure before it gets habitable,” the official said. — AP/AFP