Arakan News Agency
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that a senior official will lead a joint mission to the camps of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh, after more than half a million refugees from Myanmar fled to Bangladesh.
Mark Lukok, humanitarian and rescue coordinator for the United Nations, have left for Dhaka with UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake on a three-day visit, UNICEF said in a statement.
“The objective of the joint mission is to identify the difficult humanitarian situation of the Rohingya refugees,” the statement added.
The mission will visit Rohingya camps in the Cox-Bazar region of southeastern Bangladesh, where more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the attacks in Arakan, Myanmar.
Meanwhile, the Myanmar authorities have announced the reopening of schools for Rakhine Buddhist children in towns where religious violence has taken place in the western state and the return of “stability”, according to media close to the government.
Half of the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan have fled to Bangladesh since the outbreak of violence, causing the world’s largest refugee crisis.
Refugees say their villages were burned by the army and gangs in Arakan. The violence has also displaced about 30,000 Buddhists and Hindus in the state.
Education officials said schools had reopened in the towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung “with stability returning,” according to a report by the New Global Light of Myanmar newspaper.
“Schools in certain villages are safe,” the report said, apparently referring to areas inhabited by Buddhists considered by authorities to be officially recognized ethnic minorities in the country.
