M Humayun Kabir: Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), has urged the government representatives and the business leaders from the Asia-Pacific region to offer more support and protection for 700,000 Rohingya refugees sheltered in Bangladesh.
“I urge you to consider what support your Governments could pledge in solidarity with Bangladesh until solutions are found for refugees,” he said, reports UNB.
Filippo was addressing ministers of 26 countries in Bali, Indonesia, at the Seventh Ministerial Conference of the Bali Process recently.
He said they need also to work towards comprehensive solutions for the people of Rakhine State, so that they are not forced to move in the first place.
The Bali Process is a forum made up of 48 Governments and four international organizations — including UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
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 would have legal alternatives to putting their lives at risk while on the move.
Since late August 2017, widespread and systematic violence against Myanmar’s mainly Muslim minority Rohingya has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes in Rakhine state for Bangladesh, according to UN News Centre. Prior to that, well over 200,000 Rohingya refugees were sheltering in vast, makeshift camps in Bangladesh as a result of earlier displacements.