Arakan News Agency
Two British ministers visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh to assess how the United Kingdom would help refugees who fled acts of brutality and murder by Buddhist militias and the Myanmar army.
The two ministers, Joanna Joanna Roper, British government envoy for gender equality, and Mark Field, the British secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific, Saturday held talks with senior government officials in the capital Dhaka to learn how the Bangladeshi government supports Rohingya communities in education.
“I call on the international community to work with Bangladesh to support refugees, both during the monsoon and in the long run, through education and livelihoods,” Field said in a statement posted on the British government website.
“Girls’ education is the right thing to do: women and girls have the right to be educated, empowered and safe,” said Roper. “Girls should not be ignored. All girls should be able to receive 12 years of quality education.”
The two ministers visited the refugee camp in Cox-Bazar, southeast of Bangladesh, met refugee families and community leaders and heard stories of the persecution they suffered from the Myanmar authorities in Arakan.
They also visited a children’s rehabilitation camp run by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), where efforts are being made to preserve children and provide them with education.
The two ministers were also briefed on how to harness the United Kingdom’s relief assistance to Rohingya refugees.
“The United Kingdom remains a major donor to the crisis, providing 129 million pounds ($ 170 million) since September last year to support vulnerable refugees and host communities,” Field said.
Since 25 August 2017, the Myanmar army and extremist Buddhist militias have launched a new wave of repression against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Arakan.
The wave of repression, described by the United Nations as “ethnic cleansing”, has displaced nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh, 60 percent of them children, according to UN figures.
It also killed at least 9,000 Rohingyas between 25 August and 24 September 2017, according to the international organization Doctors without Borders.
