Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what estimate he has made of the Rohingya population remaining in Rakhine province, Myanmar; and if he will make a statement.

The UK estimates there are around 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Rakhine State (126,000 of whom have been confined to camps since 2012): they face an increasingly dire situation.  There have been fewer clashes in Rakhine since November 2020, but the conflict dynamics in Rakhine remain potentially volatile. The coup has made humanitarian operations difficult and contributed to food shortfalls. This comes on top of the challenges brought by COVID and conflict over the last year. We are in close contact with networks on the ground in Rakhine to monitor risks of atrocities, human rights violations and deterioration in the humanitarian and health situation in camps and villages.

We continue to regularly raise the challenges facing the Rohingya on the international stage, most recently in the UN Security Council Presidential Statement agreed on 10 March.