The USA has urged Myanmar to create conditions inside Rakhine as per Rohingyas’ demands for ensuring safe and dignified return of these forcefully displaced people from Bangladesh.
“We continue to call on Burma (Myanmar) to create the conditions that would allow for voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable returns, based on the informed consent of those who (Rohingyas) have been forcibly displaced,” said a statement issued by the US embassy in Dhaka on Wednesday.
It said, the USA encourages Myanmar to work with Bangladesh to facilitate the use of the Burmese curriculum to teach Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
“This will help facilitate the reintegration of Rohingya youth who choose to return to Burma,” it said.
The USA made the call in New York while announcing more than $127 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Rohingyas and host Bangladeshi communities and internally displaced Rohingya and members of other affected communities in Myanmar, said the statement.
It said this funding will help address the emergency needs of some of the more than 900,000 displaced people in Bangladesh, many of whom are Rohingya women and children from Rakhine State as well as the related needs of Bangladeshi host communities.
The USA remains the leading contributor to the humanitarian response to this crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh, having provided more than $669 million since the outbreak of violence in August 2017.
The USA commends the Bangladesh government’s generosity in responding to this humanitarian crisis and appreciates its continued efforts to ensure assistance reaches the affected populations.
“The US government remains committed to ensuring that humanitarian and development assistance continues to reach the Bangladeshi communities who have so generously hosted Rohingya refugees,” it said.
Acknowledging that the US cannot meet the crisis’ tremendous funding needs alone, the statement said the USA welcomes other UN member states humanitarian contribution in recent months, and “we call on other countries and stakeholders to do the same”.
Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar district and most of them arrived there since August 25, 2017 after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” by other rights groups, reports BSS.