Bangladesh is holding a two-day convention in Cox’s Bazar on the persecuted Rohingya neighborhood earlier than a high-level convention on the Rohingya refugee disaster in September on the sidelines of the United Nations Common Meeting.
The assembly, organised by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs, comes eight years after greater than one million Rohingya, lots of whom at the moment are stateless, had been pressured to flee Myanmar and take shelter in Bangladesh. They fled a Myanmar navy crackdown that killed hundreds of Rohingya and has been described as a struggle crime and genocide.
“Since 2017, Rohingyas have had no direct dialogue with worldwide our bodies, the Bangladeshi authorities, native communities or Myanmar,” mentioned Kamal Hossain, chairman of the Forcefully Displaced Myanmar Nationwide Consultant Committee, a Rohingya advocacy group. “This convention is seen as a step towards options.”
Who’s attending?
Khalilur Rahman, excessive consultant for the Rohingya concern and nationwide safety adviser of Bangladesh, opened the convention on Sunday.
Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, chief of Bangladesh’s interim authorities, is anticipated to attend the assembly, geared toward serving to one of many world’s most marginalised teams of individuals.
Different delegates will embrace international ministers, worldwide envoys, UN company representatives and officers from Bangladesh’s abroad missions.
A delegation led by Rahman may also go to the Rohingya refugee camps – the biggest on the earth – to talk to the residents, who’ve more and more been going through shortages of meals and medication.
The convention is being held because the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar have been impacted by help cuts as a lot of the 1.5 million folks depend on handouts.
“Because the starting of this yr, meals rations have been reduce from $12 a month to $8 a month to $6 a month, mainly half, and at that degree, they’ll’t afford any fish, rooster. It’s mainly simply pulses and rice,” Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng mentioned, reporting from Cox’s Bazar.
He mentioned Yunus has referred to as for the convention so Rohingya are “not forgotten”.
“He hopes that they may, over the course of the following couple of days, discover some actual options to what occurs to the Rohingya, they usually [the Rohingya] don’t stay right here in these camps forgotten to the remainder of the world,” Cheng mentioned.
What’s the importance of the convention?
For Nay San Lwin, cochairman of the Arakan Rohingya Nationwide Council, “that is the primary time in eight years that the Rohingya can have the chance to be heard.”
“The importance of this convention is that the voices expressed right here will likely be carried ahead to the UN Excessive-Stage Convention on the Rohingya and different ethnic minorities, which is able to happen in New York on September 30,” he mentioned.
Nay San Lwin additionally informed Al Jazeera: “Tright here will presumably be one other one [UN meeting] in Qatar in December. Since these conferences are being held at a really excessive degree, we hope they may at the least end in a decision for the Rohingya.”
“I consider these processes can lead towards a everlasting answer for the Rohingya,” he added. “Our final purpose stays to return to our homeland in Myanmar with full rights, dignity and safety.”
What has the UN mentioned concerning the Rohingya not too long ago?
Earlier than Sunday and Monday’s assembly, the UN referred to as for citizenship, equality and safety for Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.
The principally Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for many years. Of the estimated 3.5 million Rohingya worldwide, it’s estimated 90 p.c dwell as refugees and undocumented migrants.
“As we close to the passing of one other yr with no justice for the violence which began on August 25, 2017, in Myanmar, we’re left to ask the query of when the enduring distress for these and ongoing crimes will finish, notably for the long-suffering Rohingya neighborhood,” UN human rights workplace spokesman Jeremy Laurence mentioned.
“Ending impunity and guaranteeing the Rohingya’s rights to safety, citizenship and equality are important for breaking the cycle of violence,” he mentioned at a information briefing in Geneva.
Has the scenario modified not too long ago?
Laurence mentioned the human rights and humanitarian scenario in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has sharply deteriorated since November 2023, deepening the life-threatening situations confronted by the Rohingya nonetheless residing there.
The impoverished state – a slice of coastal Myanmar bordering Bangladesh – witnessed intense struggling throughout the newest battle in Myanmar, triggered by a 2021 coup that deposed a democratically elected authorities and put one other repressive navy administration in energy.
Each the navy and native ethnic fighters from the Arakan Military “have dedicated and proceed to commit severe atrocity crimes towards the Rohingya with impunity… in flagrant violation of worldwide regulation,” Laurence mentioned.
UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk is looking for the worldwide neighborhood to step up assist for the Rohingya, Laurence added.
However Fatema Khatoon – who fled Myanmar 3 times due to navy crackdowns in 1978, 1992 and once more in 2018 – will not be certain of the convention’s consequence.
“I need to go house with justice, to get again my land and property. I need to see peace there. It’s been eight years since I got here right here for the third time. How for much longer should we undergo?” she informed Al Jazeera.
Successive help cuts have already brought on extreme hardship amongst Rohingya within the overcrowded settlements, the place many depend on help and undergo from rampant malnutrition.
Are there extra conferences proposed?
Sure, the president of the UN Common Meeting has set September 30 because the date of a convention in New York.
