DHAKA, APRIL 27, 2018 (BSS) – A 15-member United Nations Security Council (UNSC) team will arrive in Bangladesh tomorrow to discuss Rohingya issue with the government and have a firsthand report on the plight of the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.
The UNSC team led by its President Gustavo Meza-Cuadra of Peru will arrive in Bangladesh tomorrow afternoon. He will leave for Myanmar on Monday morning, a foreign ministry spokesperson told BSS.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam and Rear Admiral (retd) Khurshid Alam, a secretary at the ministry, will receive the delegation members at Cox’s Bazar.
The 15-member UNSC delegation will comprise of the representative of five permanent members of the council-UK, USA, Russia, France and China.
The other members include permanent representatives from Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Sweden and deputy permanent representative from Ivory Coast.
Diplomatic circle, however, sees the UNSC team visit to Bangladesh as an opportunity for the country to earn support of the highest decision-making body of the UN towards resolving the long-standing Rohingya crisis.
The delegate will talk to Rohingya people to know the plight of the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals, who took shelter in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district following violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in August last year.
During the visit, the team members will exchange views with the government officers engaged in repatriation process, local and foreign organisations working there for providing humanitarian assistance and other services to the Rohingya community in different camps.
The UNSC team will pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Hasina on Monday and then leave for Myanmar for a two-day visit to discuss on the issue with Myanmar authorities.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam will host a reception in honour of the UNSC team at 7:30pm at Radisson Blu Dhaka Water Garden Hotel on Sunday.
Our Cox’s Bazar correspondent said the delegation would visit the refugee camps in Kutupalong and interact with the Rohingyas to learn about the atrocities they faced in Myanmar’s Rakhine state by the security forces.
Later, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Abul Kalam Azad will brief the UNSC team about the overall Rohingya situation including major challenges they are facing for handling a huge number of Rohingya refugees.
Nearly 700,000 Rohingyas fled Myanmar military’s violent crackdown on them since August 25 last year, while more than 300,000 others, who crossed over from Myanmar in the previous years, were already staying in Bangladesh, posing a major humanitarian threat to the country. However, the UN described the situation as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, urged Myanmar to stop the violence on innocent Rohingya people and ensuring safe, secured and sustainable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees.