The UK has pledged £47.5 million to provide life-saving support for Rohingya refugees and to help Bangladesh with its response to the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters.
This announcement comes as the UK co-hosts a major international summit on the Rohingya crisis, along with the US, EU and UNHCR, today to bring together the international community to raise much-needed funds for the humanitarian response, said the UK Foreign Office in a statement.
Over one million Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, without formal education or work opportunities. Coronavirus has made the situation in the packed and unsanitary camps even more desperate.
This new funding announced by the UK foreign secretary will provide hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people with food, healthcare, water and sanitation, as well as care and counselling for those traumatised by the violence they have experienced. It will also improve access to education for 50,000 young people, as well as create isolation and treatment centres for people suffering from coronavirus, according to the statement.
Alongside this, the UK aid package will support communities in Bangladesh, as the country is hosting the highest number of Rohingya refugees. It will strengthen its health system to respond to Covid-19 and continue the UK’s support to help Bangladesh become more resilient to natural disasters such as flooding, it said.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “The people living in Cox’s Bazar face unimaginable hardship and many have been victims of violence. We have imposed sanctions on the perpetrators of this brutality, and this new funding will save lives in the camp and help Bangladesh become more resilient to disasters such as coronavirus.
“Today I urge the world not to turn away from the Rohingya’s suffering and to take the action necessary to allow them to safely return to the homes they fled in terror.”
This summit will bring countries together to show solidarity for the Rohingya people, express support for nations hosting them as refugees and urge countries to pledge funds to the humanitarian crisis which this year is critically underfunded. The UN has estimated it needs $1.0 billion this year to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh but so far less than half of that has been raised, according to the UK Foreign Office statement.
At the conference, FCDO Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon is to reiterate that steps must be taken to work towards the voluntary, safe and dignified return of the Rohingya to their homes in Myanmar. In August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya left the country to escape brutal and systematic violence. Since then, the UK has sanctioned two generals in the Myanmar military, as recommended by a UN independent investigation, which found them responsible for atrocities which amount to ethnic cleansing, it said.
In addition to the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, up to 150,000 are living in other countries in the region and an estimated 600,000 live in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the statement added.
