US budgets US$180 million humanitarian aid for Rohingya refugees from Myanmar

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 -- The United States earmarked an additional US$180 million (US$1=RM4.19) to aid more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

“With this new funding, our total humanitarian assistance for this response reaches more than US$1.5 billion since August 2017, when more than 740,000 Rohingya were forced to flee ethnic cleansing and other horrific atrocities and abuses in Burma’s (Myanmar’s) Rakhine State to safety in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,” Sputnik reported, quoting Price as saying in a press release on Wednesday.

The total includes more than US$1.2 billion for programmes that allow US humanitarian partners to provide life-saving assistance to the nearly 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. It also provides support to more than 472,000 affected members of the local host community in Bangladesh, the release said.

US aid covers multiple realms, including education, food security, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, disaster response, water, sanitation and hygiene, the release added.

An 2017 offensive by Myanmar’s military and affiliated militias forced more than 700,000 mainly Muslim Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

Price said many of those who led a February 2021 military coup in Myanmar are the same individuals responsible for the atrocities against Rohingya, as well as atrocities and other human rights abuses against members of other ethnic and religious minority groups.

The release included a US demand that Myanmar allow unfettered access to Rohingya and other ethnic groups that are displaced inside the country.

-- BERNAMA