SUBANG: The Malaysian government has sent its fact finding humanitarian aid team to Chittagong, Bangladesh today to help Rohingya refugees who are stranded at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
The team consists of 12 officers including six from the Malaysian Armed Forces, one from the Prime Minister’s Department, and one from IM4U (voluntary group) while others are civil servants from Ministry of Defence.
Chittagong mission was led by Rear Admiral Datuk Pahlawan Mohamad Adib Abdul Samad, Chief of Staff of the Joint Force Headquarters while the mission to Dhaka that flew this evening was headed by Lieutenant General Datuk Abdul Halim Jalal,Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Headquarters.
The fact finding team mission is to identify the needs of the refugees and will facilitate them with the necessary humanitarian aids, according to the report.
The team is expected to finalize their mission by next week, after which 35 1M4U volunteers will be among others to join the humanitarian aids to Bangladesh.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said, the government has decided to give humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas who have been tortured, prosecuted, raped and killed in a structured manner.
“The government will help whatever they could and we have decided to send two Royal Malaysian Air Force A400M Airbuses as carriers for the humanitarian aids.
“With the tagline: Negaraku Prihatin”, the government feels that it has come to a point where we cannot leave Bangladesh to handle the refugees’ problems alone as the numbers are increasing dramatically,” he told the media at the RMAF Airport, Subang Saturday afternoon.
Najib was there to meet the team that was flown by RMAF Airbus A400M to Bangladesh with 12 tonnes of humanitarian aid in the form of food, towels, soap and other items.
Najib said, according to the Bangladesh United Nations (UN) Commissioner to Malaysia, currently there are 350,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees who have been forced to flee Myanmar recently adding to 500,000 already in the refugee camps.
The Prime Minister also assured that the Malaysian government will do the necessary follow up actions to give humanitarian aids to the Rohingya refugees with the consent of the Bangladesh Government.- Malaysia World News
