HRC55: Oral statement during the oral update with the High Commissioner on the situation in Myanmar

Item 2:Oral update with the High Commissioner on the situation of human rights in Myanmar

Organisation:Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker:Claire Denman

Thank you, Mr President,

CSW thanks the High Commissioner for his r update on the situation in Myanmar. In particular, we acknowledge the desperate plight of the Rohingya who remain stateless and are often unwelcome in the countries they have fled to.

In 2023 intolerable conditions of lawlessness, overcrowding, disease, and a lack of resources led many Rohingya to leave the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, to search for a safer refuge.

Over 3,500 Rohingya refugees took to boats to flee Myanmar or Bangladesh last year. A dangerous sea journey with an uncertain chance of survival was preferable to the conditions they had to endure closer to home.

Those that made it to the shores of countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia frequently faced a hostile reception with reports of boats being pushed back on arrival.

We call upon member states to uphold the principle of non-refoulement and work together to provide a compassionate yet durable solution to this refugee crisis.

By November last year, 90% of the Rohingya population of the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar did not have adequate food, with children being hardest hit.

Despite the World Food Programme recently announcing an increase in the value of its monthly food vouchers, there remains an urgent need to address the acute levels of malnutrition that resulted from the 2023 aid cuts.

We echo the Deputy High Commissioners calls for the international community to come together to ‘provide robust and sustained financial support for Rohingya refugees’[1], and to address aid shortfalls, particularly the US$37 million shortfall in the WFP to further boost food rations for the Rohingya.

Thank you.

[1] United Nations, Report of the High Commissioner to the 55^th session of the Human Rights Council, ‘Summary of the panel discussion on the measures necessary to find durable solutions to the Rohingya crisis and to end all forms of human rights violations and abuses against Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar’, 5 January 2024, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/000/73/pdf/g2400073.pdf?token=jqWjKaHaU0Nv7cxJdD&fe=true