Iran Ready to Provide Emergency Shelters for Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: Official
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The secretary general of Iran’s Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said the country is ready to help Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar by building temporary shelters for them in Bangladesh.
Iran is ready to set up relief tents in Bangladesh and shelter the Myanmarese Muslims for three months, Mostafa Mohammadiyoon said on Wednesday.
He added that the Islamic Republic would send more humanitarian aid for the persecuted people of the South Asian country in the near future if a need arises.
An Iranian delegation will travel to Bangladesh on Thursday with a consignment of humanitarian aid for the Muslims, hundreds of thousands of whom have crossed into Bangladesh since late August to escape a military crackdown.
Meanwhile, Head of the Relief and Rescue Organization of the IRCS Morteza Salimi said the Islamic Republic is also prepared to set up field hospitals for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh.
The Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have long faced severe discrimination and were the targets of violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people from their homes to camps for the internally displaced.
On September 12, the UN refugee agency said the number of Rohingya Muslim refugees that have fled recent violence in Myanmar has spiked to about 370,000.
Earlier, the UN top human rights official accused Myanmar of carrying out “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against Rohingya Muslims.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the military’s “brutal” security campaign was in clear violation of international law, and cited what he called refugees’ consistent accounts of widespread extrajudicial killings, rape and other atrocities.
