Arakan News Agency
Indonesia will send humanitarian aid to Myanmar and Bangladesh on Wednesday to aid the oppressed Rohingya Muslims in Arakan, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Tuesday.
“Relief aid will be distributed to all victims of the crisis without exception,” Ms Marsoudi told a news conference at the government palace in Jakarta on Saturday.
“The Myanmar government has confirmed that humanitarian aid will be distributed to everyone without discrimination between ethnicities and religious backgrounds,” she said.
“What we need (the people affected by the crisis in Myanmar) now is rice, blankets, clothing, toiletries and other items,” she said.
According to the foreign ministry official, the aid will be handed over to Rohingya refugees (the oppressed minority in Arakan) currently in the coastal cities of Chittagong and Kos Bazar, Bangladesh.
She explained that there would be additional shipments of aid if necessary.
“We will deliver aid to Bangladesh because most of those affected (from violence in Myanmar) have sought safety there,” she said.
Earlier today, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Leonard Doyle said that the number of Arakan Muslims who fled to Bangladesh reached 370 thousand since 25 August.
Since late August, the Myanmar army and Buddhist militias have committed genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan.
There is no clear census of the victims of the genocide, but a human rights activist in Arakan told Anatolia that they had identified 7,500 people and 6,541 wounded from Rohingya since the start of the genocide campaign until September 6.
