Rohingya: Monsoon Season

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) on securing this important debate. Her testimony about her recent visit to Cox’s Bazar was deeply harrowing and real. Other hon. Members also made excellent contributions. We have heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friends the Members for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), and the hon. Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for St Albans (Mrs Main), who raised concerns about the relocation of the Rohingya. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) echoed the concerns raised by the Members who spoke before him.

The plight of the Rohingya people is clearly one of the greatest human tragedies of this century. Forced by violence to flee their homes, more than 1 million refugees have sought haven in Bangladesh—the majority in Cox’s Bazar. That speed of displacement has not been witnessed since the Rwandan refugee crisis in 1994. More than half a million Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh within a month.

Cox’s Bazar is one of the most flood-prone areas of Bangladesh and has an average of 2.5 metres of rainfall during June, July and August. To put that in perspective, in Britain, where we are far from blessed with glorious sunshine, we receive less than 1 metre of rain in the entire year. Time is clearly of the essence. The pre-monsoon rains have already begun, and the situation is critical. On 26 April, a storm damaged shelters and affected several families in the camps. Last week a mudslide was reported in camp 4 in Cox’s Bazar, and there were reports of at least one fatality. The scale of the potential humanitarian disaster is truly horrifying, and more than 100,000 people, more than half of whom are children, are at risk of being directly affected by landslides and floods. That is only a conservative estimate, because that figure could double, should the rains be particularly heavy.

It is not just that there is a direct threat to life from the rains and mudslides. We have heard today that sanitation conditions are expected to deteriorate significantly, leading to reduced access to safe drinking water. As of December, water samples collected from households showed that 81% were already contaminated with E. coli, and the situation will only get worse in the coming months. It is highly likely that there will be increases in water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and hepatitis and in diphtheria, malaria and dengue fever. According to the International Rescue Committee, 36% of people are already living without access to clean, safe water—a figure compounded by the fact that 46% of the functioning water pumps in the area are at risk from flooding or landslides. Can the Minister confirm whether the UK emergency medical team is in position to respond, much as it did between late December and early February, to an upsurge in disease in the camps?

The window of opportunity for moving refugees to more secure locations is rapidly closing. As of 23 April only 12,400 refugees had been relocated to safer sites. I recognise that the United Kingdom is playing a leading role in the humanitarian response, and I welcome its overall humanitarian work—especially the announcement yesterday of an additional £70 million towards preparing for the monsoon. Will the Minister provide assurances that that leading role includes encouraging others to increase their contributions to the effort, and will he outline what steps are being taken to achieve that?

I welcome the Department for International Development’s direct humanitarian work, but it is clear that the issues of humanitarian access, safe, voluntary, dignified returns, and dealing with the long-term persecution faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar can be addressed only with a political solution. For that purpose I urge the Government to keep their eye on the ball and to step up the political will and the focus that they are devoting to finding such solutions.

[Mrs Main]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern at the lack—particularly when the memorandum of understanding between Bangladesh and Burma was being agreed—of a voice for the Rohingya at the table? There is no identified leader and no person who can speak out for what the community would like to happen in the negotiations.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I absolutely agree, and I will come on to that point.

The Government of Bangladesh have rightly been praised for their initial response, but as we move into a dangerous new phase of the crisis it is imperative to address operational barriers that hinder the work of aid agencies. International donors have granted $14 million of funding, which cannot be utilised at present because of restrictions on which organisations can deliver aid programmes in Cox’s Bazar. That has led to the utterly perverse situation of badly needed aid money being returned to donors.

In response to a written question that I tabled on 13 April, the Minister recognised:

“International non-governmental organisations face ongoing challenges with securing and renewing visas and permits”.

He stated:

“UK Ministers and officials continue to liaise with their Government of Bangladesh counterparts on this issue.”

With that in mind, will the Minister provide an update on discussions between the UK and Bangladesh Governments on the process of issuing FD-7 visas so that international aid organisations can implement humanitarian projects, and will he confirm that the UK Government are pressing for the duration of the authorisation to be increased?

Owing to further administrative procedures, up to 90% of aid staff currently have to use short-term tourist or business visas to enter the country. Will the Minister assure me that his Department is doing all it can to ensure that the Government of Bangladesh agree FD-6 agreements with agencies, so that their staff are able to apply for the appropriate visas necessary to plan and implement their work?

Secondly, at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, a roundtable on the Rohingya crisis was co-hosted by the UK and Canada, with the Foreign Ministers of Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh in attendance. That meeting represented a chance to discuss the crisis at the top level of Government. Will the Minister say whether preparations for the monsoon season were specifically discussed at that meeting?

Thirdly, although the immediate priority must of course be the impending monsoon, the only permanent solution to the crisis is for the security situation in Rakhine state to be such that the Rohingya are able to return safely and voluntarily to their home. Although in January an agreement was reached between the Governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar to repatriate 156,000 Rohingya over the next few years, in reality neither the security situation nor the stipulations placed on returning Rohingya, such as identity documents, are conducive to such a move.

I met the Myanmar ambassador to raise my concerns about the ongoing treatment of the Rohingya, but I do not believe that blaming the failure of Rohingya repatriations on administrative errors by the Bangladeshi authorities indicates a serious desire on the part of the Myanmar Government to solve this crisis. The UK Government must maintain pressure on the Myanmar authorities to engage seriously with the issues faced by the Rohingya, not least those of security and citizenship. What are the Government doing to ensure that the Myanmar Government and General Min Aung Hlaing are properly brought to account for the atrocities they have committed? Does the Minister agree that the Myanmar Government cannot be trusted to protect the Rohingya until they truly feel the heat of international pressure and accountability for what has happened?

I welcome the UK continuing to fund humanitarian work in Cox’s Bazar as monsoon season approaches, but I hope that that terrible threat will act as a spur to renew the UK’s political will and to solve some of the longer term political problems. Only then will we finally see an end to the suffering of the Rohingya people.