UN Called for New Solutions for Rohingya Crisis

reporter 1222 — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 12:42:05 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, called Friday for renewed solutions for the crisis of displaced and stateless Rohingya communities inside and outside Myanmar.

Discussing solutions, the agency said nearly 900,000 are refugees in Bangladesh, three years after the Rohingya crisis there peaked.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said at a Geneva news conference that the international community must maintain support for Rohingya refugees, host communities and expand the search for solutions.

“Three years on from the latest exodus of Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar and sought sanctuary in Bangladesh from August 2017 onwards, challenges persist and continue to evolve,” said Mahecic. “Rohingya communities estimate that up to three-quarters of the Rohingya people are today living outside of Myanmar.”

The agency said Bangladesh registered more than 860,000 Rohingya refugees in settlements in Cox’s Bazar.

“Ultimately, the solution to the plight of the Rohingya lies in Myanmar, and in comprehensively implementing the Advisory Commission’s recommendations on Rakhine State, to which the Government of Myanmar has committed,” said Mahecic, Anadolu Agency reported.

He noted that Bangladesh had ensured protection and extended life-saving humanitarian support by hosting nine out of 10 Rohingya refugees registered in the Asia-Pacific region.

“This generosity must be acknowledged through continued investment in both Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi host communities,” he said.

Creating conditions conducive to the Rohingya people’s safe and sustainable return will require a comprehensive society engagement, resuming and enhancing dialogue between Myanmar authorities and Rohingya refugees and other measures that help inspire trust, he said.

“These include lifting restrictions on freedom of movement, reconfirming that internally displaced Rohingya can return to their villages and providing a clear pathway towards citizenship,” said Mahecic.

He said Rohingya people’s strength and resilience in exile in Bangladesh and elsewhere had formed the backbone of the humanitarian response during the past three years.

“Respecting and recognizing their courage and capacities means ensuring they are not forgotten as the crisis enters a fourth year,” he said.

The Rohingya are described by the UN as the world’s most persecuted people, and have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

Amnesty International said more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.

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UN Resolution against Abuse of Rohingya Muslims

reporter 1222 — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 06:43:27 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The UN approved a resolution strongly condemning human rights abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape, and deaths in detention.

The 193-member UN on Friday voted 134-9 with 28 abstentions in favor of the resolution which also calls on Myanmar’s government to take urgent measures to combat incitement of hatred against the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states.

General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion.

Earlier this month, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, denied that her country’s military acted with “genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya.

Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.

The long-simmering Rohingya crisis exploded on August 25, 2017, when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign led to the mass Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh and to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes.

Hau Do Suan, Myanmar’s UN ambassador, called the resolution “another classic example of double-standards (and) selective and discriminatory application of human rights norms” designed “to exert unwanted political pressure on Myanmar.”

He said the resolution did not attempt to find a solution to the complex situation in Rakhine and refused to recognize government efforts to address the challenges, The Telegraph reported.

The resolution, the ambassador said, “will sow seeds of distrust and will create further polarization of different communities in the region.”

The resolution expresses alarm at the continuing influx of Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh over the past four decades, now numbering 1.1 million including 744,000 who arrived since August 2017, “in the aftermath of atrocities committed by the security and armed forces of Myanmar.”

The assembly also expressed alarm at an independent international fact-finding mission’s findings “of gross human rights violations and abuses suffered by Rohingya Muslims and other minorities” by the security forces, which the mission said, “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.”

The resolution called for an immediate cessation of fighting and hostilities.

It reiterated “deep distress at reports that unarmed individuals in Rakhine state have been and continue to be subjected to the excessive use of forces and violations of international human rights law, international humanitarian law by the military and security and armed forces.”

And it called for Myanmar’s forces to protect all people, and for urgent steps to ensure justice for all rights violations

The resolution also urged the government “to expedite efforts to eliminate statelessness and the systematic and institutionalized discrimination” against the Rohingya and other minorities, to dismantle camps for Rohingyas and others displaced in Rakhine, and “to create the conditions necessary for the safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return of all refugees, including Rohingya Muslim refugees.”

It noted that the Rohingya have twice refused to return to Myanmar from Bangladesh because of the absence of these conditions.

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UN Called for New Solutions for Rohingya Crisis

UN Resolution against Abuse of Rohingya Muslims