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The fastest growing humanitarian crisis in the world needs our help to be fixed.
Since August 2017, more than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled death, and destruction of their homes in the Rakhine state of Myanmar for asylum in Bangladesh. The United Nations has gone so far as to call this a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”
Who are the Rohingya?
Rohingyas are an ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar and have been living there for centuries. However, they have been denied basic needs like citizenship from their own country and were even excluded from a census in 2014. According to Myanmar, they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
What Is Happening?
On 25 August 2017, Rohingya militants attacked 30 police posts in Myanmar. In response to this, the government launched an offensive against them, what they said was only against the militants, but instead targeted the whole population.
According to the BBC, Troops, backed by local Buddhist mobs, responded by burning their villages and attacking and killing civilians.
At least 6,700 Rohingya, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the month after the violence broke out, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Amnesty International says the Myanmar military also raped and abused Rohingya women and girls.
The government puts the number of dead people at 400 and claims that “clearance operations” against the militants ended on 5 September 2017. As many reports have shown, this just simply isn't true.
At least 288 villages were burnt and partly destroyed. The residents of these villages migrated by foot to Bangladesh as refugees.
Before August, there were already around 307,500 Rohingya refugees living in camps, makeshift settlements and with host communities, according to the UNHCR. A further 655,000 are estimated to have arrived since August.
These refugees set up camp wherever possible, without access to food, aid, drinking water, shelter, or healthcare.
The situation is dire.
The whole refugee population — almost one million people — require food and aid. 18,083 children under five have been treated for severe acute malnutrition. 424,100 children under 15 years of age require diphtheria vaccination after outbreak confirmed.
How Can You Help?
Aid is already being given by many international charities, but they need monetary aid to be able to do anything.
The Rohingya Crisis is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing humanitarian problems in the world, but with extensive media coverage of other matters, has largely gone under the radar.
It is a crime that we on a global scale are allowing to happen under our noses and one that shouldn’t be happening in a world as connected as the one we live in today.
We have at our service tools like the internet that we can use to bring about change that wouldn’t have been possible years ago.
I’m only a 15-year-old sitting in his room typing this. The best I can do is write this for my 20–30 consistent readers. But if you are reading this, please do help.
We humans are defined by our ability to cooperate, to help each other when we need it. Now would be a good time to do so.
Here’s a great NYT article that shows you how you can help: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-Myanmar-bangladesh.html
The best thing to do would be to donate money to a charity helping the area get access to basic needs like food and water.
If anything, you can at least raise awareness about the topic by talking to your friends and family about it.
Here’s a video I made about helping the Rohingya that tries to put things in perspective: