UN, World Bank chiefs to visit Rohingya camps

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim are likely to visit Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on July 1 as a part of their two-day official trip.

"A visit to Bangladesh by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim is currently under consideration. Details on the visit will be shared when they become available," The Daily Star quoted Qimiao Fan, World Bank country director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal as saying.

Guterres and Jim will then hold meetings with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Finance Minister AMA Muhith, the government's Economic Relations Division (ERD) sources said.

The World Bank may offer a grant worth $200 million to help tackle the ongoing Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.

Rohingyas are a Muslim minority ethnic group in Myanmar and are considered to be illegal immigrants.

More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees are languishing in Bangladeshi refugee camps, after fleeing a brutal Myanmar army campaign launched in August last year.

The United Nations had earlier said the scorched-earth operation, which had left hundreds of villages burned to ash in Myanmar's Rakhine state, amounted to 'ethnic cleansing'.

(ANI)