Bangladesh: PM Sheikh Hasina to raise Rohingya crisis issue at UN General Assembly

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will make a formal proposal at the upcoming 72nd United Nations General Assembly session for an early implementation of recommendations by the Kofi Annan-led Commission.

The Advisory Commission recommended that the Myanmar Government take concrete steps to end the enforced segregation of Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims; ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access throughout the state; tackle Rohingya statelessness and "revisit" the 1982 Citizenship Law; hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable; and end restrictions on freedom of movement, among other recommendations.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali said that Prime Minister Hasina would highlight the root cause behind the longstanding humanitarian crisis and place specific proposals for early solution during her address at the general debate on September 21, The Daily Star reported.

Hasina will also urge the world leaders to play an effective role in stopping the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

The Rohingya Muslims, who have taken refuge in Cox's Bazar and Teknaf border areas in Bangladesh after they fled the barbarous persecution in Myanmar's Rakhine State, are now suffering due to an absence of food, shelters, medicines, sanitation facilities and clean water.

The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said around 4,00,000 refugees have fled from the violence-affected Myanmar's Northern Rakhine state and sought refuge in Bangladesh, where the limited shelter capacity is already exhausted.

Many of over 3,50,000 refugees, staying either under open sky or at the new refugee camps and shelters, are suffering from diarrhoeal and different diseases and don't have an access to even clean drinking water and proper medicines. 

-ANI