UN Rights Chief to Visit Rohingya Camps in Bangladesh Next Week

Geneva, MINA – Michelle Bachelet is to make the first visit by a UN rights chief to Bangladesh next week, including to the sprawling refugee camps home to nearly a million Rohingyas.

Bachelet’s office announced Friday that the trip from Sunday to Wednesday was at the Dhaka government’s invitation.

As quoted from The New Arab on Saturday, it will be one of the former Chilean president’s final acts as the United Nations high Commissioner for Human Rights before her four-year term expires at the end of the month.

During her visit to the capital Dhaka, the UN rights chief is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other ministers.

“The high commissioner will also travel to Cox’s Bazar where she will be able to visit camps housing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and meet with refugees, officials and non-governmental organisations,” her office said in a statement.

The visit comes ahead of the fifth anniversary this month of the Rohingya exodus into the southeastern tip of neighbouring Bangladesh.

The camps house nearly one million Rohingya refugees that fled a military offensive in Myanmar.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya left Rakhine State in August 2017 after the crackdown, which the UN is investigating over genocide charges.

Bangladeshi authorities have become increasingly impatient about hosting the refugees while criticising the rest of the world for not providing more assistance.

Bangladesh bans the 920,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees from leaving camps surrounded by barbed wire.

The Rohingya are loathed by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, who see them as illegal immigrants and refer to them as “Bengali”.

They have refused to go back until assured of security and equal rights — which Myanmar has refused to promise — so remain stuck in bamboo-and-tarp shacks with no work, poor sanitation and little education.’ (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)