Female Nobel laureates in Bangladesh to meet Rohingya women
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Three female Nobel Peace laureates began a weeklong trip to Bangladesh on Saturday to meet Rohingya Muslim women who were tortured and raped by soldiers in Myanmar before fleeing the country.
During their visit, Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, Yemen’s Tawakkol Karman and Northern Ireland’s Mairead Maguire will assess the violence against the Rohingya women and the refugees’ overall situation, according to the Nobel Women’s Initiative, a platform of six female peace laureates established in 2006.
About 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled army-led violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar since late August and are living in Bangladeshi refugee camps. Myanmar’s security forces have been accused of atrocities against the Rohingya, including killing, rape and arson. The United Nations and the United States have described the army crackdown as “ethnic cleansing.”
Sunday is the six-month anniversary of the start of the refugee crisis, Asia’s worst since the Vietnam War.