Priyanka Chopra urges world to care for Rohingya refugees
Dhaka, May 22 (IANS) Actress and global Unicef Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights Priyanka Chopra, who is on a field visit here, has urged the world to care for and support Rohingya refugees, among whom are a whole lot of children who she says are scarred for life because of their ordeal.
Priyanka on Monday visited Cox’s Bazaar, one of the largest refugee camps in the world, and shared photographs of her experience with Rohingya children, on Instagram.
Almost 700,000 refugees have fled violence in neighbouring Myanmar and arrived in Cox’s Bazar since August 2017, according to the UN.
“In the second half of 2017, the world saw horrific images of ethnic cleansing from the Rakhine State of Myanmar (Burma). This violence drove nearly 700,000 Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh – 60 per cent are children!
“Many months later they are still highly vulnerable, living in overcrowded camps with no idea when or where they will ever belong…even worse, when they will get their next meal,” Priyanka wrote.
“And as they finally start to settle and feel a sense of safety, monsoon season looms…threatening to destroy all that they have built so far. This is an entire generation of children that have no future in sight.”
Priyanka, who had met Syrian refugee children in Jordan last year, says children are at the “forefront of this humanitarian crisis, and they desperately need our help”.
“The world needs to care. We need to care. These kids are our future,” she wrote.
Priyanka also shared a video talking about how the refugees had to travel by foot to enter Bangladesh.
“Their trip here was filled with many hardships and tremendous danger. Many of them made their journey on foot, walking for days through the hills, then floating across the Naf River or the Bay of Bengal on make shift boats… Many of them injured, pregnant, elderly.
“Their ordeal did not end here, after entering Bangladesh, they would often have to wait for days, sleeping in the open fields with no food or water, for aid workers to reach them. For a lot of the Rohingya children, this ordeal will leave them scarred, physically and emotionally, for the rest of their lives,” she added.
Priyanka asked for helping these children “because right now, their future is bleak”.