Red Cross leader: Rohingya crisis needs political solutions

Maurer also said the conditions for repatriation to happen were tough. “The conditions are simply not there for large numbers of people to return home,” he said.

The Rohingya have faced state discrimination for generations in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Maurer said their return would require “steps towards ensuring freedom of movement, access to basic services, freedom to undertake economic activity and access to markets in Rakhine, and most importantly trust in security arrangements for returnees.”

He said that while he was in Myanmar, he met Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, who described “how the social fabric and local economy have been destroyed, making people entirely reliant on humanitarian aid.”

“In one village I visited, less than a quarter of the population remains, only 2,000 of the original 9,000 villagers,” Maurer said.

In the camps in Bangladesh, over a million people live in misery, he said.

“Those sheltering in the camps of Cox’s Bazar live in shocking conditions that violate human dignity,” he said, noting the conditions in the camps will worsen with the monsoon rains arriving.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi all visited the refugee camps this week and promised to work with Bangladesh toward resolving the crisis.

“A better future for the people here will need inclusive political solutions, environmentally sustainable economic investment and a strong commitment to international humanitarian law and human rights,” Maurer said in a statement in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, as he concluded his visit.

He met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday and told her he found a positive attitude in Myanmar toward resolving the crisis, said Hasina’s press secretary, Ihsanul Karim.

Julhas Alam, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Red Cross leader: Rohingya crisis needs political solutions

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