OIC Continues providing Humanitarian Aid to Rohingya Refugees

Kajang, Malaysia - The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Special Envoy for Myanmar Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar has supervised providing humanitarian help to alleviate the suffering of displaced Rohingya Muslims as a continuation of OIC efforts in this regard.

In the run up to Ramadan, the OIC arranged for the aid packages to be distributed to over 1,500 Rohingya refugees in Kajang, Malaysia. The distribution of the packages was carried out by Humaniti Malaysia and began on June 11 as part of continued OIC efforts to assist Rohingya refugees across Southeast Asia.

Albar has been playing an active role in the region, directly engaging with those involved on the ground. He also presented a report at an OIC ministerial contact group meeting on the Rohingya minority held on the sidelines of the 42nd council of foreign ministers in Kuwait on May 27-28. The report was unanimously adopted by ministers who attended the meeting.

It was during this meeting that the foreign ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia announced that they had accepted the Rohingya boat migrants as refugees in their respective countries and would provide them with temporary shelter. Other OIC member states also pledged support for the refugees. Qatar donated $50 million while Turkey announced that it would give $1 million and would send a Turkish naval ship with aid workers to assist the migrants. Pakistan made a special grant of $5 million in food aid to be distributed to Rohingya refugees in Myanmar as well as those in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

These are a sample of ongoing OIC efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees as mandated by several resolutions adopted by the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers.