Do your part
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has urged governments and business leaders of the Asia-Pacific region to help Bangladesh shoulder the responsibility of hosting some one million refugees, who have fled atrocities in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
“Can we conceive of development, trade, and migration-related measures to help the people and government of Bangladesh shoulder the responsibility of hosting some 900,000 refugees?” he said.
Grandi put forward the options including expanding guest worker quotas for Bangladeshis that would increase remittances or reducing tariffs on garment exports from Bangladesh, according to UN News.
He said these on Tuesday while addressing the ministers of 26 countries in Bali, Indonesia, at the Seventh Ministerial Conference of the Bali Process, a forum of 48 governments and four international organisations -- including the UNHCR, IOM and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
In March 2016, the Bali Declaration was adopted, highlighting the need for a comprehensive collective approach to resolve statelessness, invest in inclusive development, and expand safe pathways so that refugees and migrants do not have legal alternatives to putting their lives at risk while on the move.
Bangladesh has been hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas since the 1980s as they fled persecutions in Myanmar where they are denied citizenship, higher education, healthcare, government job and freedom of movement since 1982.
The massive influx over some 720,000 Rohingyas amid a brutal military campaign since August last year added further burden on Bangladesh, a highly-populated country with its own challenges including poverty, climate change, scarcity of land and forest.
According to Bangladesh government, some 300,000 other Rohingyas had been living in Bangladesh prior to the latest influx.
“I urge you to consider what support your governments could pledge in solidarity with Bangladesh until solutions are found for refugees,” said the UN Refugee Agency head.
Grandi then urged the governments to move “from consultation to action on the commitments they made” in the declaration, asking them to consider how they could share Bangladesh's refugee burden.
“Could your government support, for example, construction of hospitals in Bangladesh that will treat refugees but also improve the health care of local people?”
The real solution of the Rohingya issue lies in Myanmar, he said, urging regional support to address the root causes of displacement in Rakhine: for example, investing in infrastructure that connects communities instead of dividing them, and providing expertise on resolving statelessness and inter-communal conflict.
MYANMAR APPROVES UN STAFF TRIP TO RAKHINE
Myanmar government has approved the travel of the staff of UN agencies to conduct preliminary assessments in 23 villages -- 12 in Buthidaung and 11 villages in Maundaw in northern Rakhine -- Myanmar Times reported yesterday quoting a statement of the country's foreign ministry.
''This information has been transmitted to the relevant departments to make necessary arrangements for the field assessments,'' the Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
An official of the UNHCR said they will continue to engage with Myanmar on moving forward the MoU.
“We continue the discussions with the government on this matter and other matters related to the MoU,” he said.
Myanmar signed a tripartite MoU with UNHCR and UNDP on June 6 regarding preparation for the repatriation of the Rohingyas. In November last year, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed another MoU on repatriation, but the Rohingyas and UN said the conditions in Rakhine were not conducive for their return yet.
On Wednesday, the two UN agencies said they had submitted request on June 14 for the staff to be based in Maungdaw and to start their work in the northern part of Rakhine State, but they were waiting for response from the government.
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