Sadly, we have a crowded line up of contenders for this moment’s most pressing human catastrophe. They include Syrians fleeing ISIS, Yemen’s cholera epidemic, South Sudanese facing starvation. Yet almost unnoticed, and eclipsing them all, are the more than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar (Burma) since August 25. Some 250,000 of these refugees are children, and in the wake of their flight lie villages ablaze and soldiers shooting at their backs.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, identifies this as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Like most other chapters of interracial persecution, this one has a long, sorted history of escalation that includes systematic discrimination, unbridled lethal force, and blatant neglect of the most fundamental human rights.
But at this very moment what is most urgently needed is live-saving aid for these refugees arriving in Bangladesh by the thousands each day. Follow these developments via your preferred news outlet. Consider an immediate financial gift to Samaritans Purse or to UNHCR. And develop your own crisis response skills via the INMED Disaster Management Self-Paced Course and upcoming Humanitarian Health Conference.