Rohingya Crisis Debate
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Faisal Rashid
Main Page: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)Department Debates - View all Faisal Rashid's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Rohingya Crisis
Faisal Rashid Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) on securing this timely debate and bringing further attention to such an important issue. I also echo many of the comments that have been made in the debate today. It is utterly heartbreaking to read and hear reports about the devastation in Rakhine state and of the desperate situation that many are facing in Bangladesh. We have a responsibility to speak out against those atrocities and do all we can to stop them, and having listened to colleagues from across the House speak in this debate today, it is clear that that is something on which we all agree.
More than half a million Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August, and more than 340,000 of those are children, many travelling unaccompanied. That is the largest displacement of people in a short period since the Rwandan genocide. Two hundred and eighty-four Rohingya villages have been torched; tens of thousands of people have been victims of gender-based violence, including rape and sexual assault; thousands more people have been violently attacked, and many of those have tragically lost their lives. We must be prepared to call this what it is: a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
I commend the steps that the Government have taken so far in an effort to tackle this crisis. Unfortunately, however, as we all know, in reality that action is not enough. We have been speaking for long enough, and the situation continues to worsen. I call on the Government to lead the way in organising an immediate co-ordinated and effective international response to the crisis, and to urge the other members of the United Nations Security Council to come together and use their collective power to help this persecuted minority. The Burmese Government must be held to account, and the war crimes that have been committed by the Burmese military must be investigated in an international court. The Rohingya people need justice.