Home ›› 31 May 2023 ›› Governance
Bangladesh should not bear the burden of more than 1 million Rohingya refugees alone while UN agencies are facing challenges to feed them, a United Nations official said Monday.
Olivier De Schutter, a UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, made the statement at the end of a 12-day trip to Bangladesh, where he visited camps sheltering the refugees from Myanmar. He said the international response to meet the funds needed to support the refugees is “grossly insufficient.”
About $876 million is needed to support the community for a year, but only 17% of that has been pledged to date, he said, calling it “scandalous” at a news conference in Dhaka.
“Bangladesh should not be left to shoulder the burden of the presence of the refugees on its own. These (UN) agencies should be much better supported in their work,” De Schutter said.
