Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock with a group of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in Kutapalong Refugee Camp, Bangladesh on 26 April 2019.
© UNHCR/Will Swanson

Future of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh ‘hangs in the balance’ – UNHCR chief

26 April 2019
Humanitarian Aid

The critical needs of 1.2 million mostly Rohingya refugees in south-eastern Bangladesh were top of the agenda for a fact-finding mission to the region by three senior United Nations officials, who called for continuing support on Friday for them from the international community.

Boya Lake Provincial Park in British Colombia, Canada at midnight.
WMO/Jason Salisbury

Monday’s Daily Brief: Earth Day, looking for a solution to Libya crisis, focus on indigenous issues, Security Council on Sri Lanka, a high-level visit to Bangladesh

22 April 2019
Climate and Environment

Top news for Monday include: the celebration of International Mother Earth Day, efforts by the UN to push for a political solution to the Libyan crisis, the opening of the annual Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the UN Security Council's condemnation of the Sri Lanka attacks, and an upcoming UN high-level mission to Bangladesh to highlight the humanitarian needs of Rohingya refugees settled there.

Bangladesh. Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar to safety in Cox's Bazar.
© UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo

UN and partners appeal for $920 million to meet ‘dire needs’ of Rohingya refugees

15 February 2019
Humanitarian Aid

With more than 745,000 Rohingya having fled violence in Myanmar to settle in Bangladesh, joining roughly 200,000 others already sheltering there, United Nations aid agencies and partners launched an appeal on Friday to help meet their “dire needs".

On 24 July 2018, a child at home in the Taung Paw Camp in Rakhine State in Myanmar.
© UNICEF/UN0229016/Sirman

Scale of displacement across Myanmar ‘very difficult to gauge’, says UN refugee agency

8 February 2019
Human Rights

Concern over escalating violence in Myanmar’s Chin and Rakhine states continues to grow, with civilians reportedly forced to flee both internally, and across the border into Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have already sought shelter.

Residents of the Muslim Ward known as Aung Mingalar in the town of Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar.
OCHA/P.Peron

Parliamentary bid to democratize Myanmar constitution a ‘positive development’ says UN rights expert

7 February 2019
Human Rights

A newly formed parliamentary committee to amend Myanmar’s problematic constitution was welcomed as a positive move on Thursday by Yanghee Lee, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the country.

Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, speaks to the press after visiting the Bangladesh island of Bhashan Char. 25 January 2019.
UNIC Dhaka/Mohammad Moniruzzaman

Myanmar Government side-lining democratic reform, resorting to military era repression: UN expert

25 January 2019
Human Rights

The human rights situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, as the civilian government fails to bring about democratic reforms and instead resorts to the kind of repression carried out under previous military regimes, said the UN human rights expert Yanghee Lee, speaking at the end of an 11-day mission to neighbouring Thailand and Bangladesh.

A boy carries bamboo along a very muddy road into the Balukali camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. In preparation for the monsoon season, a frenzy of building and reinforcement required vast quantities of bamboo. 13 June 2018.
© UNICEF/UN0217535/LeMoyne

Bamboo-boring beetles wreak havoc in Rohingya refugee camps, UN agency races to respond

21 December 2018
Humanitarian Aid

Beset by millions of bamboo-chomping beetles, almost every shelter in the vast Rohingya refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh, needs replacing. With just over four months to go until the beginning of the monsoon season, the race is on for IOM, the United Nations migration agency which is managing the camp, to provide families living in the worst-affected temporary dwellings, with new and more durable bamboo.

In this file photograph, children walk shelters at a camp for displaced persons in Rakhine state, Myanmar. Most of the displaced are women and children.
UNICEF/Brown

UN agencies welcome green light for Rohingya projects in northern Myanmar; urge ‘more effective access’

17 December 2018
Humanitarian Aid

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, on Monday announced that they had received the Government go-ahead to develop community projects in Myanmar’s Rakhine province, and called on authorities to provide “more effective access” to the area.

Rohingya refugee settlement, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
IOM/Olivia Headon

UN migration agency builds temporary safe havens to shelter Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

20 November 2018
Migrants and Refugees

The United Nations migration agency said on Tuesday that it has upgraded structures in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps as temporary accommodations for emergency situations.

Over 720,000 members of Myanmar's Rohingya community have sought refuge in Bangladesh after widespread ethnic violence erupted in the country's Rakhine province.
UNICEF/Brown

‘Terror and panic’ among Rohingya who may be forced to return to Myanmar – UN rights chief

13 November 2018
Human Rights

There is “terror and panic” among Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh, who are at imminent risk of being returned to Myanmar against their will, the United Nations top human rights official has said, warning that the returns would seriously endanger the lives of those sent back.