Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy path after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 3, 2017.

Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy path after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 3, 2017.
Photo Credit: Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Canada provides $2.5M in urgent funding for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

The federal government announced on Friday $2.55 million in urgent funding assistance to the United Nations agencies grappling with a huge influx of Rohingya refugees fleeing from Myanmar in recent weeks to escape what the UN’s human rights chief has called a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing.’

The Canadian funding announcement comes following an urgent appeal by the office of the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh last week, calling for $77 million US to help humanitarian agencies operating in Cox’s Bazar, in eastern Bangladesh, to assist people who have fled violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where many of the Rohingyas have lived for generations.

Nearly 400,000 Rohingyas, a Muslim minority fleeing a brutal crackdown by the Burmese security forces in the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, also known as Burma, have crossed the border with Bangladesh since the latest flare-up of violence on Aug. 25.

That’s on top of 400,000 Rohingya refugees who were already in Bangladesh.

Canada ‘deeply concerned’
Rohingya children make their way through water as they try to come to the Bangladesh side from No Man’s Land after a gunshot being heard on the Myanmar side, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh August 28, 2017.
Rohingya children make their way through water as they try to come to the Bangladesh side from No Man’s Land after a gunshot being heard on the Myanmar side, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh August 28, 2017. © Mohammad Ponir Hossain

“Canada remains deeply concerned about the violence in Rakhine state and the displacement of more than 375,000 people into Bangladesh since late August,” International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a statement.

“The support Canada is announcing today will help partners provide life-saving assistance to people fleeing violence.”

The Canadian funding will be directed at programs providing, therapeutic feeding for pregnant women and for small children, clinical care and psychosocial counselling for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, emergency obstetric and newborn care, and building child-friendly spaces, Bibeau said.

Most refugees are children
Rohingya refugees stretch their hands for food after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh.
Rohingya refugees stretch their hands for food after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh. © Danish Siddiqui

About 60 per cent of the refugees are children, said Jean-Jacques Simon, a Canadian who serves as chief of communications for UNICEF in Bangladesh.

“Any funding of that sort is extremely appreciated, extremely welcomed and extremely needed,” the former Montrealer said in a phone interview from the capital Dhaka.

UNICEF, which will receive $550,000 from Ottawa, is appealing for $7.3 million US to help it deal with the crisis and care for the children and their families in the next four months, Simon said.

‘We’ll need a lot more’

“The task in front of us is just huge and we know that we’ll need a lot more,” Simon said. “This crisis is for the long run, it’s not just for a few days or a few weeks, we’re talking about a few months here.”

A Rohingya boy carries a child while walking in the mud after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 1, 2017.
A Rohingya boy carries a child while walking in the mud after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 1, 2017. © Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Many of the refugees arrive in very poor condition after having trudged for days through muddy rural roads and rice paddies, Simon said.

“In the last three days we saw a continuous influx of people coming and again you had the same proportion of children among the newcomers,” said Simon, who witnessed first-hand the conditions of refugees arriving in the remote areas around Cox’s Bazar.

Many of the children are unaccompanied or had been separated from their parents and family members, and arrive in such poor nutritional state, they need urgent and specialized nutrition support services, he said.

The agency has been providing services related to protection, education, nutrition as well as water and sanitation in the makeshift camps that have sprung up around Cox’s Bazar and in remote areas near the border, Simon said.

‘Textbook example of ethnic cleansing’

A police officer stands in a house that was burnt down during the days of violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar August 30, 2017.
A police officer stands in a house that was burnt down during the days of violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar August 30, 2017. © Soe Zeya Tun

On Monday, the United Nations human rights chief lashed out at the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

The latest security operation in Rakhine state following attacks by Rohingya militants on Aug. 25 against 30 police posts was “clearly disproportionate and without regard for basic principles of international law,” Zeid Ra‘ad al-Hussein told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,”al-Hussein said, noting that the current situation cannot yet be fully assessed since Myanmar has refused access to human rights investigators.

Many more people reportedly remain trapped in the no-man’s-land between Myanmar and Bangladesh, al-Hussein said.

“We have received multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages, and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians,” al-Hussein said.

Myanmar’s military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies it is targeting civilians.

Al-Hussein also cited reports of Myanmar authorities laying landmines along the border with Bangladesh and requiring Rohingya returnees to provide “proof of nationality.”

“Given that successive Myanmar governments have since 1962 progressively stripped the Rohingya population of their political and civil rights, including citizenship rights – as acknowledged by Aung San Suu Kyi’s own appointed Rakhine Advisory Commission – this measure resembles a cynical ploy to forcibly transfer large numbers of people without possibility of return,” al-Hussein said.

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, Ontario, on June 7, 2017.
Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, Ontario, on June 7, 2017. © LARS HAGBERG/AFP/Getty Images

State Counsellor Suu Kyi, who is widely recognized as the de facto leader of Myanmar, is the leader of the National League for Democracy of Myanmar.

Some human rights groups and Rohingya activists in Canada have called on the Liberal government to strip the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of her honourary Canadian citizenship for her failure to address the violence against the Rohingya minority.

Categories: Immigration & Refugees, International, Politics
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