DHAKA: The United States will contribute $32 million ( about Tk. 262 crore) in humanitarian aid to help Rohingya Muslim refugees who entered Bangladesh, escaping ethnic cleansing conducted by Myanmar army and Buddhists in Rakhine State.
The US embassy to Dhaka said this at a press release issued on Wednesday (September 20).
US Ambassador to Dhaka Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat said that the US will give the fund as emergency humanitarian aid.
Bernicat said that US remains beside Bangladesh on Rohingya issue. She also lauded the role of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for giving shelter of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, an US media quoting the State Department reports that The United States will contribute nearly $32 million in humanitarian aid to help Rohingya Muslim refugees.
It is Trump administration’s first major response to the mass exodus from Myanmar. The exodus has emerged as major blemish on the record of Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who maintained close ties to the Obama administration.
The fund will come from a US state department account, co-ordinated through the International Committee of the Red Cross and affiliated local groups.
The announcement comes as world leaders gather in New York for UN General Assembly meeting.
American secretary of state Rex Tillerson discussed the Rohingya crisis by phone on Tuesday with Burma's civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
The state department said the money will help provide food, health care, water and sanitation, shelter and psychological support.
Simon Henshaw, the top US diplomat for refugee and migration issues, said the U.S. applauds Suu Kyi’s recent call for the Rohingya to return but is urging her to ensure the situation is safe for them to come home. “We need the government to take a lot further effort to secure the area, to protect the people,” Henshaw said in an interview on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings. “We’re concerned about the reports of attacks, extrajudicial murders, rapes, burning of villages.”
The US said that the new money makes up roughly one-fourth of what global aid groups say they need to address the humanitarian crisis, with the expectation that the rest of the world will make up the remaining three-quarters. Over time, the overall cost will probably run into many hundreds of millions, said Eric Schwartz, the president of Refugees International.
“I’ve been doing this work for 30 years,” Schwartz said by phone as he flew back from Bangladesh. “This is as bad as anything I’ve ever seen in terms of the human mystery that the Burmese military has created.”
Schwartz said that in addition to food, water and shelter, the refugees will need clothing, security for camps being erected on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, education for hundreds of thousands of child refugees, and psychosocial support for those who have experienced trauma during the exodus.
Bangladesh already struggles with overpopulation and is poorly equipped to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees. Even so, the international community has roundly praised the country for its generosity and willingness to help the Rohingya.
The $32 million brings the total the US has given in humanitarian aid for Myanmar refugees and related issues this budget year to roughly $95 million. Although the crisis has worsened sharply in recent weeks, hundreds of thousands more Rohingya were already in Bangladesh from waves of violence years earlier, while others were displaced within Myanmar.
About 420,000 Rohingya refugees entered Bangladesh, escaping the ethnic cleansing conducted by Myanmar army and Buddhists in the country's Rakhine State began on August 25.
BDST: 2050 HRS, SEP 20, 2017
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