Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has called upon Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to take “immediate steps” to halt the Rakhine State violence and stem the flow of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.
“The process of peacemaking must begin without delay,” he said in an article published in the Middle-East's ‘The National’ newspaper.
Yunus has also put forward some ideas on how to start the peace process.
Those include implementation of the Kofi Annan commission report that asked Myanmar to give Rohignyas citizenship, and building camps within Myanmar for the returning refugees to facilitate their rehabilitation with UN financing and supervision.
The Bangladesh government had also proposed these measures since the beginning of the new wave of violence on Aug 25.
So far, according to the UN, nearly 400,000 Rohignya refugees have entered Bangladesh taking the total number of such stateless population living here for decades to 800,000.
Yunus asked fellow Nobel Peace prize-winner Suu Kyi to undertake a visit to the refugee camps in Bangladesh to address the terrified people living there.
“She should tell them that Myanmar is as much their home as it is hers. This single act of leadership will wash away all the suspicions and begin the process of healing,” he wrote, according to bdnews24.com.
