SHAFAQNA – The Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), based in the Turkish capital Ankara, has revealed that 61.5 percent of the world’s displaced people, whose number is estimated at more than 25 million, are from the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
In addition to the displaced persons, SESRIC report has found that 67 percent of the world’s refugees settle in the OIC member states, as well as 71 percent of the people around the world who need necessary assistance (89 million persons) also live in the OIC countries.
The OIC General Secretariat said Tuesday, in a statement, that it will hold a brainstorming session on the humanitarian dimension and relief operations of the member states in the Islamic world, especially those related to the addressing of the protracted Rohingya crisis. The brainstorming session will be held on the sidelines of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, to be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 5-6.
The special session follows several consultations held by the OIC General Secretariat, the most prominent of which was the meeting of Secretary General Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Md Shahriar Alam, as well as the visit of the delegation from the General Secretariat and the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh last January.
The brainstorming session will highlight the significant shortfall in assistance to the disaster-stricken areas, amid the increased number of disasters and humanitarian crises, especially the man-made ones such as civil wars and conflicts. The statistics show that a number of member states are conflict-affected and refugee-hosting countries at the same time, with seven Muslim nations, among 10 world’s countries, hosting the largest share of displaced persons.
The upcoming brainstorming session will focus on Bangladesh’s great role in containing the consequences of the crisis in Myanmar, by hosting hundreds of thousands of fleeing Rohingyas. This makes the crisis a purely Islamic problem, with displaced people as its main component. Topping the list of the host countries, Bangladesh holds the accumulated burden of hosting and the daily expenses of these newcomers, to bear the brunt of a complex and dual problem that requires Islamic action at all levels.
The crisis requires a broader global mobilization, making the Rohingya issue a collective international responsibility, in which Myanmar bears the moral and humanitarian consequences of its violations as it seeks to transfer its internal problems to neighboring countries.