Arakan News Agency
The head of the U.N. agency that coordinates humanitarian aid says they have pledged roughly $340 million to help more than 600,000 ethnic Rohingya who have fled Myanmar into Bangladesh since August.
Mark Lowcock of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said donors included governments and the European Union at a one-day conference in Geneva for the Rohingya. The U.N. and its partners are seeking $434 million to help the Rohingya through February.
Lowcock said more contributions are still expected.
“We are facing a massive refugee crisis. It demands a comprehensive refugee response based on global refugee response standards,” Lowcock said Monday.
The U.N. refugee agency says 603,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled into Bangladesh since security forces in neighboring Myanmar launched a violent crackdown against them on Aug. 25. The U.N. has termed Myanmar’s actions a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
Bangladesh has been hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled Myanmar dating back to 1978. The U.N. said some 800,000 Rohingya Muslims are now living in temporary settlements there, about 58 percent of them children up to 17 years old.
Over half of those who have fled are children.
