Agencies must be allowed to aid Rohingyas, say US and UN
August 9, 2012: The United States has joined the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in urging
the government to allow aid agencies to restore much-needed assistance to Rohingya
Muslims who have fled sectarian violence in neighboring Myanmar.
Last Thursday
Bangladesh ordered three international aid organizations, Doctors Without Borders,
Action Against Hunger and Muslim Aid, to stop their activities in and around camps
near Cox’s Bazar, near the border with Myanmar.
The authorities said the country
is already struggling to cope with the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees
who fled ethnic violence in the 1990s and are living in camps near Cox’s Bazar. They
say the NGOs are undermining the government’s efforts to deter more refugees from
entering the country.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the US State Department
said it was “deeply concerned” over the ban. On the same day, the UNHCR appealed to
Bangladesh “to ensure that NGO assistance continues to be provided to unregistered
people from Myanmar’s Rakhine state.”
“If the order is implemented, it will
have a serious humanitarian impact on some 40,000 unregistered people who had fled
Myanmar in recent years and settled in the Leda and Kutupalong makeshift sites,” said
UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards at a press conference in Geneva.
“Local villagers
nearby will also be affected as they, too, have been benefiting from basic services
provided by the NGOs,” he added. The UNHCR also said it was closely following reports
of fresh violence in northern Rakhine state over the weekend and has received accounts,
yet to be verified, of several villages being burnt north of Sittwe, the state capital.
Many young men have reportedly fled, leaving mainly women and children behind, it
said.