IOM to continue providing assistance to Rohingya refugees

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in a report published on Wednesday (Nov 28), states that the organisation will continue to provide life-saving and sustaining assistance to over 900,000 Rohingya refugees currently residing in 34 camps in the Cox's Bazar. 

IOM's overarching priorities include respecting and upholding the Rohingya's protection needs, improving the quality of and access to services, and focusing on sustainable solutions. 

The United Nations migration agency provides direct assistance to both refugees and host communities covering protection, health, shelter, site management and site development, energy and environment, livelihoods and social cohesion, disaster risk reduction, needs and population monitoring, and coordination initiatives.

The IOM intends to increase its immigration and border management portfolio to support the government's border management and counter-smuggling interventions in Bangladesh. 

IOM will continue to engage with relevant government stakeholders to uphold migrants' right to safe and dignified return to Bangladesh. 

Internal displacement

Highlighting how ongoing conflicts and violence in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen have led to massive internal displacement in the last two years, the IOM's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said a total of 41.3 million people were forced to flee their homes at the end of 2018.

This is a record figure since monitoring began in 1998.

The report also states that conflict also contributed to a large number of new internal displacements in Asia, with the Syrian Arab Republic recording the largest number (1.6 million), around 9 per cent of its population. Other countries where conflict led to significant internal displacement included Afghanistan (372,000), Yemen (252,000) and the Philippines (188,000).