Senior leaders of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states have stressed the importance of taking swift action to put an immediate end to the ongoing brutal violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Keep in note OCI is the biggest body on earth after United Nations.
ASTANA, September 10. /TASS/. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday during a summit of the Organization of Islamic Organization (OIC) on sciences and technologies, held in Astana, his country is ready to help refugees from Myanmar.
“In Myanmar, our Muslim brothers experience very abusive treatment, they are made to flee their houses, and we must apply every effort to prevent the unfair attitude to them,” he said. “Together with governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh we want to be working to prevent this human drama.”
The Turkish president said the Muslims seeking shelter in Bangladesh also need support.
“We have informed authorities of Bangladesh that we want to offer assistance,” he continued. “In order to stop this violence, all the Islamic states must apply effort together.”
Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain arrived in Asatana this afternoon to attend the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Science and Technology Summit. The two day summit would begin at the Kazakh capital tomorrow. The Summit is the first of its kind as it specializes on issues related to health, education, innovation, research, space exploration, climate changes, food security and other vital issues for development.
On the sidelines of the first OIC summit on science and technology in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana, the participants held an emergency meeting on the latest condition of the Rohingya Muslims amid the fresh wave of violence against the minority group and issued a statement.
The statement called for cooperation among Muslim countries aimed at dispatching humanitarian aid to the oppressed Rohingya and attending to the condition of the refugees.
The OIC leaders attending the Astana summit also expressed their deep concern about crimes and violence against the Rohingya Muslims.
Addressing the summit on Sunday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani underlined the need for unity and cooperation among Muslim countries as the key to rid the world of violence and reach permanent peace.
“We have all reached a consensus that the Muslim world is a crucial and effective part of the global system, and its capability, progress and stability lead to global capability, progress and stability,” the Iranian president said.
Iran’s President Rouhani made the remarks in an address to the first Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit on science and technology in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on Sunday.
Myanmar’s government alleged last October that its posts had been attacked by Muslim militants, using the purported assault as a pretext for a siege on Rakhine state. It claimed that another attack had been carried out on August 25 this year, triggering the recent brutal crackdown on the civilians in that state.
Since the beginning of the fresh wave of violence, counteroffensives by Myanmar’s army have killed hundreds of people, burned thousands of houses, razed a large number of villages and depopulated vast swathes of land in Rakhine state. However, Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has dismissed the Rohingya crisis as a misinformation campaign, rejecting the occurrence of any clampdown on the minority.
There have been numerous reports of summary execution, rape, and other abuses against Myanmar’s Muslims since late last year.
Bangladesh: ‘genocide’ waged against Myanmar’s Rohingya
Also on Sunday, foreign minister of Bangladesh said genocide was being waged in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, triggering an exodus of nearly 300,000 Rohingya Muslims to his country.
“The international community is saying it is a genocide. We also say it is a genocide,” A.H. Mahmood Ali was quoted by AFP as saying after briefing diplomats in Dhaka.
Ali had a meeting with Western and Arab diplomats and the heads of UN agencies based in Bangladesh on Sunday to seek support for a political solution and discuss ways of delivering humanitarian aid to the Rohingya.
The Bangladeshi foreign minister told the diplomats that some 300,000 Rohingya Muslims had fled to his country in the past two weeks, increasing the total number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to over 700,000.
“This is creating a huge challenge for Bangladesh in terms of providing shelter as well as other humanitarian assistance to them,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.
At least two diplomats who attended the briefings said the minister told them as many as 3,000 people may have been killed in the latest round of violence, AFP reported.