COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Some 379,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state for Bangladesh since new violence erupted last month, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The figure has risen by 9,000 in 24 hours, the UN refugee agency spokesman Joseph Tripura told AFP.
Bangladesh authorities are now registering new arrivals and building a massive new camp near the border with Myanmar to accommodate the influx.
“We’ve already started shifting thousands of people to this camp where we’re building sheds for them,” Ali Hossain, government administrator for Cox’s Bazar district, told AFP.
Attacks by Rohingya militants on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine on August 25 sparked a harsh military crackdown on the minority Muslim community and the exodus started almost straight away.
Rohingya people have long been subjected to discrimination in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, which denies them citizenship.
There were more than 300,000 Rohinya in refugee camps and makeshift settlements in Bangladesh even before the latest unrest.
These are now completely overwhelmed and tens of thousands of new arrivals have no shelter.
Most walked for days to reach Bangladesh and aid workers say many are sick and in desperate need of food.
Rohingya exodus from Myanmar hits 379,000
Rohingya exodus from Myanmar hits 379,000
UK upper house approves social media ban for under-16s
LONDON: Britain’s upper house of parliament voted Wednesday in favor of banning under?16s from using social media, raising pressure on the government to match a similar ban passed in Australia.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday he was not ruling out any options and pledged action to protect children, but his government wants to wait for the results of a consultation due this summer before legislating.
Calls have risen across the opposition and within the governing Labour party for the UK to follow Australia, where under-16s have been barred from social media applications since December 10.
The amendment from opposition Conservative lawmaker John Nash passed with 261 votes to 150 in the House of Lords, co?sponsored by a Labour and a Liberal Democrat peer.
“Tonight, peers put our children’s future first,” Nash said. “This vote begins the process of stopping the catastrophic harm that social media is inflicting on a generation.”
Before the vote, Downing Street said the government would not accept the amendment, which now goes to the Labour-controlled lower House of Commons. More than 60 Labour MPs have urged Starmer to back a ban.
Public figures including actor Hugh Grant urged the government to back the proposal, saying parents alone cannot counter social media harms.
Some child-protection groups warn a ban would create a false sense of security.
A YouGov poll in December found 74 percent of Britons supported a ban. The Online Safety Act requires secure age?verification for harmful content.
