From left, Jahena Begum, 50, and her three disabled children – Sumaiya Akter, 23; Md Ayas, 21; and Md Harez, 19 – live in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh [File: Valeria Mongelli/Al Jazeera]
Bangladesh is holding a two-day conference on the persecuted Rohingya community before a high-level conference on the Rohingya refugee crisis in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Al Jazeera reports that the meeting was organized by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It comes eight years after more than a million Rohingya, many of whom are stateless, were forced to flee Myanmar and take shelter in Bangladesh. They fled a Myanmar military crackdown that killed thousands of Rohingya and has been described as a war crime and genocide.
The conference was opened on Sunday by Khalilur Rahman, the high representative for the Rohingya issue and national security adviser of Bangladesh.
The leader of Bangladesh’s interim government, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, is expected to attend the meeting.
The conference is being held as the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazaar have been impacted by aid cuts, as most of the 1.5 million people rely on handouts.
Nay San Lwin, cochairman of the Arakan Rohingya National Council. said, “The significance of this conference is that the voices expressed here will be carried forward to the UN High-Level Conference on the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, which will take place in New York on September 30.”
