ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has approved all the recommendations of the ministerial committee constituted on the issue of Rohingya Muslims.
According to the recommendation, the Prime Minister will write a letter to the United Nations Secretary General and to the President of the UN Security Council, highlighting the humanitarian crisis and asking for further intensification of diplomatic and moral pressure on the Myanmar government to grant adequate citizenship rights to this community in accordance with international humanitarian laws, says an Interior Ministry press release here Tuesday.
Simultaneously, the Adviser to the Prime Minister would address another letter to the OIC Secretary General and propose creation of a Special OIC Fund to provide food and other assistance to Rohingya Muslims that have left Myanmar and also those who are still leading miserable life in that country. The first letter was sent on May 20.
In addition, Pakistan would also propose establishment of three-member Committee of OIC Foreign Ministers to travel to Myanmar with a view to impress upon the Myanmar government to restore fundamental rights of the battered community so that they could live peacefully and without any fear of persecution in their home country.
The committee had also decided that a special grant of $5 million in the form of food to be channelled through the World Food Programme for distribution in Rohingya camps in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand should be announced as Pakistan’s contribution towards Rohingyas Muslims.
In line with the recommendations of the Special Committee, Pakistan will intensify its efforts at all levels to highlight the plight of battered and oppressed Rohingya Muslims and to impress upon the Myanmar government to grant equal citizenship rights and ensure protection of the oppressed minority community. The committee also decided to sensitize the international community for greater assistance in all forms to the hapless Rohingya Muslims, who are neither owned by their government nor are being given shelter by the neighboring countries. It may be recalled that the Interior Minister vehemently pleaded the case of the Rohingya Muslims and raised this grave humanitarian issue twice during the last two Cabinet meetings.
The heart-rendering narrative of countless miseries of the Muslim brethren and state of oppression to which these oppressed Muslim are being subjected evoked immediate response from the Prime Minister and the Cabinet members and it was decided to constitute a committee led by the Interior Minister to chalk out an effective response to this issue.