Iran’s first consignment of humanitarian aid for the Rohingya Muslims, who are fleeing violence at home in Myanmar, was sent to Bangladesh on Friday.
The consignment was loaded onto a cargo plane by Iran’s Red Crescent Society and headed to Bangladesh on Friday morning, Iranian media reported.
Weighing around 40 tons, it included foodstuff and medical supplies.
Earlier, Head of the Relief and Rescue Organization of the IRCS (Iran’s Red Crescent Society) Morteza Salimi said the Islamic Republic would send more humanitarian aid for the persecuted people of the South Asian country in the near future.
He added that Iran was also prepared to set up field hospitals for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh.
The Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have long faced severe discrimination and were the targets of violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people from their homes to camps for the internally displaced.
On September 12, the UN refugee agency said the number of Rohingya Muslim refugees that have fled recent violence in Myanmar has spiked to about 370,000.
Earlier, the UN top human rights official accused Myanmar of carrying out “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against Rohingya Muslims.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the military’s “brutal” security campaign was in clear violation of international law, and cited what he called refugees’ consistent accounts of widespread extrajudicial killings, rape and other atrocities.
(TNA)
