SAUDI ARABIA

Kingdom pledges $20 million for Rohingya refugees

October 23, 2017



Saudi Gazette report

GENEVA
- Saudi Arabia, represented by the King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Work (KSARelief), pledged to pay $20 million to resolve the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Addressing the International Donors’ Conference held in Geneva Monday, Dr. Yahya Al-Shammari, head of KSARelief, extended his thanks and appreciation of both Kuwait and the European Union for hosting such a key conference for raising urgent humanitarian aid for Rohingya Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar.

He also thanked the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for organizing the event, which will contribute to alleviate the suffering of the Rohingya refugees, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Al-Shammari commended the great humanitarian role played by Bangladesh through receiving over 580,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, in one of the largest movements of asylum seekers in the world, since 25 August 2017.

He noted that Saudi Arabia, since its unification by King Abdul Aziz, has been in the forefront of the humanitarian and development initiatives around the world. The Kingdom has provided a substantial portion of humanitarian assistance, with a total of about $66 million, over the last 10 years for alleviating the suffering of Rohingya Muslims.

The Kingdom also received more than 300,000 Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority in Myanmar, over the past 40 years, making the Kingdom the second country hosting Rohingya after Bangladesh. He noted that the Kingdom has dispatched 100 tons of emergency relief aid to the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, the King Abdullah Foundation has launched an initiative to support the education of more than 76,000 Rohingya refugee children, in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB). This initiative will support much needed education of Rohingya refugees who fled their country Myanmar as a result of the violence. More than 500,000 refugees have taken refuge to Bangladesh in the district of Cox’s Bazaar, bordering Myanmar.


October 23, 2017
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