Hollywood actor and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie met Rohingya refugees at a camp in Taknaf of Cox’s Bazar district on Monday. After arriving in Dhaka in the morning, on her first visit to Bangladesh, she went straight to the camp where she met the refugees, including women who had become victims of sexual violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine from there they fled to Bangladesh in August 2017.
As the UNHCR special envoy, Jolie is on a three-day visit to Bangladesh to assess the humanitarian needs of the Rohingya refugees, and also the challenges being faced by the host country.
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Nearly 750,000 Rohingyas had fled from Rakhine during a brutal military crackdown in late August 2017.
Jolie is scheduled to visit other Rohingya refugee camps in Ukhia, and also address the media on Tuesday.
READ | Angelina Jolie reaches Bangladesh to visit Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar
She spoke to several Rohingya Muslims and listened to their experience of torture and attacks in Rakhine State, and took suggestions on what measures should be taken for their safe repatriation, The Daily Star reported.
She also exchanged notes with volunteers working for the refugees.
According to a statement issued from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jolie will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and senior officials on Wednesday before leaving Dhaka. The UNHCR said the meetings would focus on how the UN refugee agency could best support Bangladesh government’s efforts for the refugees.
Jolie’s visit comes ahead of the launch of the 2019 Joint Response Plan, a new appeal for the humanitarian situation in Bangladesh, seeking to raise nearly $920 million to continue meeting the basic needs of Rohingya refugees and the communities hosting them, according to the statement.
Jolie has met Rohingyas earlier also, once during a visit to Myanmar in July 2015 and once in India in 2006.
