Arakan News Agency
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Dhaka on Sunday for talks on the plight of more than a million Rohingya Muslims who have fled their homes in Myanmar, officials said.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abulhasan Mahmoud Ali received Guterres at Dhaka airport this morning, said Alam Gir Hussain, a ministry official.
Guterres is scheduled to leave Monday for the south-eastern region of Cox-Bazar, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees live in miserable camps.
World Bank Group President Jim Young Kim, who arrived in Dhaka on Saturday, also goes to the camps themselves to accompany Guterres while listening to refugees, aid workers and government officials, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The visit will also highlight Bangladesh’s “generosity” in hosting refugees and the need for “more effort” from the international community.
Guterres and Kim are expected to seek increased donor support for refugees.
Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed the border into Bangladesh after the army launched a brutal crackdown on Muslim rebels on August 25 in Arakan province, killing hundreds and injuring many women.
The United Nations called the campaign “clear ethnic cleansing”. Bangladesh has hosted about 400,000 more refugees for years since they were expelled from their homes in Myanmar as well.
Guterres and Kim are also scheduled to meet Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikha Hasina and other senior officials in Dhaka.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is expected to return to New York on Tuesday.
