Dhaka – Hollywood mega-star Angelina Jolie has visited parts
of Rohingya camps in south-eastern Bangladesh to see difficulties that the
refugees have been facing in squalid camps.
Jolie flew to Cox’s Bazar, the south-eastern Bangladeshi
district where more than 1 million Rohingya refugees sheltered after driven
away by military in neighbouring Myanmar, in the morning and went straight to Teknaf
to visit a camp as a special envoy of the UN refugee agency, said an official
on Monday.
The American actress, who also founded the Preventing Sexual
Violence Initiative, will assess the humanitarian needs of the refugees living in
the camps.
Abul Kalam, commissioner of the Rohingya, Relief and
Repatriation Commission (RRRC), told reporters that she would also look into other
challenges that Bangladesh had been facing since the 2017 exodus of refugees
from Myanmar.
During her three-day visit she will hold meetings with Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen and other
senior officials in Dhaka, UNHCR spokesman Joseph Tripura said.
The special envoy will discuss how the UN agency can best
support the current response led by Bangladesh government and the need for sustainable
solutions to the crisis, according to the UNHCR statement.
She will stay in Cox’s Bazar, where the world’s largest refugee
settlements have been built after the exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar,
until Wednesday.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed into Bangladesh
after Myanmar army launched crackdown against suspected insurgents in August
2017. Unknown number of people were killed and that women were allegedly raped
by the soldiers and their Buddhist vigilante groups during the so-called military
‘clearance operation’.
The United Nations termed the operation as an example of
ethnic cleansing.
The visit comes ahead of the launch of a planned appeal by
UNHCR to raise 920 million dollars to meet the basic needs of the refugees and
the host community in Bangladesh in 2019.
Jolie earlier met with displaced Rohingya Muslims in July
2015 in Myanmar and in 2006 in India.
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