Two-day meeting gives a glimmer of hope for the 1.5 million Rohingya refugees forced to flee Myanmar crackdown in 2017.
Bangladesh is holding a two-day conference in Cox’s Bazar 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.
The meeting, organised by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, comes eight years after more than a million Rohingya, many of whom are now 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.
“Since 2017, Rohingyas have had no direct dialogue with international bodies, the Bangladeshi government, local communities or Myanmar,” said Kamal Hossain, chairman of the Forcefully Displaced Myanmar National Representative Committee, a Rohingya advocacy group. “This conference is seen as a step toward solutions.”
Khalilur Rahman, high representative for the Rohingya issue and national security adviser of Bangladesh, opened the conference on Sunday.
