Paet to host exhibition in European Parliament on Rohingya genocide victims

TALLINN - Urmas Paet, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, will open an exhibition in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday titled "Rohingya Heritage in Exile: Arar Rosom, Arar Elom (Our Culture, Our Knowledge)".

The exhibition is curated by the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and showcases the cultural heritage, resilience, and creative expression of the more than one million Rohingya living in the Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh.

According to Paet, the tragic fate of the Rohingya tends to be forgotten on the international stage. "Many Rohingya have fled the Myanmar military to Bangladesh, and currently, over 1.2 million of them live in the Cox's Bazar refugee camp," Paet said. "The conditions there are dire, and they face the threat of famine. I visited this refugee camp late last year and also eight years ago, and I can confirm that the situation for the Rohingya is getting progressively worse," he added.

Paet expressed hope that the exhibition in the heart of EU policymaking will help draw international attention to the plight of the Rohingya and serve as a reminder that countries must increase humanitarian aid and apply serious pressure on Myanmar so that the Rohingya can return to their homeland. "This must not become a forgotten crisis," he added.