YANGON, March 10 (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations' refugee agency met Myanmar ministers this week on his first official visit to the country and was due to travel to a state that is home to the Rohingya minority, a U.N. official said. UNHCR head Antonio Guterres was scheduled to leave on Tuesday afternoon for Sittwe, capital of Rakhine State along the border with Bangladesh, the official said, declining to be named. Rakhine is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group that has made headlines recently following reports hundreds who fled by boat to escape poverty and hardship were mistreated by the Thai military. Around 550 were feared to have died around the turn of the year after they were allegedly set adrift in boats towed out to sea by Thai forces. Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect, as an ethnic group. Rights organisations say they have been harassed since the junta seized power in 1962, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 200,000 live in Bangladesh, effectively stateless. In addition to these, around 140,000 refugees from Myanmar, mainly Christian Karens, live in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the UNHCR. On Monday, Guterres travelled to Naypyidaw, Myanmar's remote capital about 240 miles (380 km) north of the main city Yangon, and met the junta's ministers in charge of foreign affairs, home affairs, immigration and border areas, the U.N. official said. Guterres arrived in Myanmar on March 7 for his first trip, almost four years into a five-year term as head of the UNHCR. He leaves on Thursday. Official Myanmar media has made no mention of his visit and he is not scheduled to speak to the local press. (Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Jerry Norton)
An African immigrant walks out of a partially collapsed tent after gale force winds destroyed several tents at the Hal Far Tent Village Open Centre for Refugees and Asylum Seekers at ...
Refugees & displacement
