Rohingya Crisis: Special envoys of UN, Canada due next week

UN Special Envoy for Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener and Canada's Special Envoy to Myanmar Bob Rae are expected to visit Bangladesh next week to discuss the Rohingya crisis with high government officials and visit the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals sheltered in Cox's Bazar.

Diplomatic sources said Rae is due to land in Bangladesh tomorrow morning for a two-day visit while Burgener is scheduled to arrive on July 12 for a three-day visit.

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Rae, who has been an outspoken proponent of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, will leave for Cox's Bazar immediately after his arrival in Dhaka to visit the refugee camps housing an estimated 700,000 Rohingyas, who fled Myanmar amid widespread violence in Rakhine State beginning August 25, 2017, that the UN and others called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

While in Dhaka, Rae will also meet high government officials, including the prime minister and foreign minister, and interact with others concerned on Monday and before departing Dhaka on the same night.

The Canada's special envoy to Myanmar visited Bangladesh in November last year and again in May this year, making this his third visit.

Meanwhile, sources at the foreign ministry in Dhaka and New York said Burgener will arrive in Dhaka on July 12 for her first visit to Bangladesh since being appointed by the secretary general on April 26.

Burgener visited Myanmar last month and went to Rakhine State's Maungdaw township where she toured repatriation facilities and villages affected by violence during the brutal military crackdown targeting Rohingya Muslims last year.

In Dhaka, she will meet the PM, FM and other stakeholders. She will also visit refugee camps in Cox's Bazar and directly talk to the Rohingyas, as well as look at the conditions facing those fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

Burgener is tasked with enhancing cooperation between the UN and Myanmar to address the crisis in Rakhine, help bridge differences in the ethnically and religiously divided state, and assist the Myanmar government with its peace efforts.