Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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126. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the measures his Department is taking to assist Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and stop the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar; and if he has contacted his counterpart in Myanmar to condemn the actions of the Myanmar government which amount to ethnic cleansing. [48410/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I remain deeply concerned about the violence which has taken place in Rakhine State, Myanmar since 25 August, which has resulted in a severe humanitarian crisis both within Rakhine State and across the border in Bangladesh. Ireland is committed to contributing to international efforts to alleviate the immediate needs of the refugees that have entered Bangladesh, which now number over 600,000. To this end, we pledged €2m in direct support at the Pledging Conference for the Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Geneva on 23 October. €1m has already disbursed to civil society partners and international organisations that are providing services to vulnerable refugees in Cox’s Bazar and two experts have been deployed via the Irish Aid Rapid Response Corps. The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to which Ireland contributes funding, have also scaled up their operations in operations in Bangladesh and in Myanmar. My Department will continue to closely monitor the humanitarian situation as it unfolds.

In addition to providing humanitarian support, my Department has been consistent in emphasising the need to bring an end to violence in Rakhine State, for full restoration of humanitarian aid and media access, and for a comprehensive investigation into the serious allegations of human rights violations by the Myanmar security forces. We continue to press for this through our own statements, in the context of our EU membership and through participation in UN fora. Ireland’s position on this issue is reflected in Conclusions adopted by the Foreign Affairs Council on 16 October, which furthermore announced the suspension of invitations to the EU by senior military officers from Myanmar, reaffirmation of the EU arms embargo, and that further measures would be considered if the situation does not improve.

I had an opportunity to raise Ireland’s concerns in my statement to the UN General Assembly on 23 September, and Ireland co-sponsored a resolution on this issues [which was adopted by the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly on 14 November]. At the most recent session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in September 2017, Ireland also actively supported the extension of the mandate of the UN Fact Finding Mission which has been tasked with investigating allegations of human rights abuses by the Myanmar security forces.

The ASEM Foreign Minister’s Meeting will take in Nay Pyi Taw next week and will present an important opportunity for EU member states to engage with the Government of Myanmar on this issue. Ireland will be represented by Minister of State Ciarán Cannon at this meeting, and I have asked him to convey the Government’s concerns directly to representatives of the Government of Myanmar on my behalf.