The United Nations announced on Friday that Bangladesh has recorded the largest influx of Rohingya refugees over the past 18 months since the mass exodus of the Muslim minority from Myanmar nearly a decade ago.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that up to 150,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in the Cox's Bazar refugee camps in Bangladesh since the beginning of 2024.
"Targeted violence and persecution in Rakhine State and the ongoing conflict in Myanmar have continued to force thousands of Rohingya to seek protection in Bangladesh," UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva.
"The movement of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh, over a period of months, is the largest from Myanmar since 2017, when some 750,000 fled deadly violence in their homeland of Rakhine State," he added.
Baloch praised Bangladesh for hosting Rohingya refugees for generations.
About one million persecuted Rohingya, the majority of whom are Muslims, live in camps in Bangladesh, most of them having fled Burma in 2017 following atrocities committed by the Burmese military and armed Buddhist groups.
Baloch said these overcrowded camps, spread across just 24 square kilometers, have become "one of the most densely populated areas in the world."
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