OHCHR / ROHINGYA GILMOUR VISIT

During a visit to Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour said the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar continues adding that there was an attempt to destroy their “human future livelihoods” as the population still faces killings and large-scale rapes. OHCHR

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:03:15
• Production Date: 6 March 2018
• Asset Language: English
• Corporate Name: OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS - OHCHR
• Subject Topical: HUMAN RIGHTS; REFUGEES
• Geographic Subject: BANGLADESH; MYANMAR
• MAMS Id: 2104828
• Parent Id: 2104828
• Alternate Title: unifeed180306g

Description

STORY: OHCHR / ROHINGYA GILMOUR VISIT
TRT: 03:15
SOURCE: OHCHR
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT OHCHR ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 03 MARCH 2018, COX’S BAZAAR, BANGLADESH

Shotlist

03 MARCH 2018, COX’S BAZAAR, BANGLADESH

1. Med shot, Gilmour walking in camp
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Today I had a set of interviews with people who have just arrived, who have just crossed the Myanmar border. And I have to say that the stories they account are truly harrowing. And there is a real consistent nature of the atrocities that they still suffer.”
3. Wide shot, Gilmour speaking to teenagers
4. Wide shot, teenagers
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Nobody wants to reward the ethnic cleansers on the Myanmar side who have driven them out but at the same time one cannot force people to go back into what could be certain death. What is going on at the moment, not only are there still killings, are there still rapes on a large scale, not only are they driving people out with force and threats but also there is a, it seems almost systematic, attempt to destroy their human future livelihoods.”
6. Wide shot, Gilmour speaking to teenagers
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Just yesterday, they were on the border. So almost in front of the international community’s eyes there were people being forced across no-man’s land by microphone, by megaphones, by bullets being fired to drive those Rohingya who were briefly camped in no-man’s land between the two countries were being forced in to Bangladesh.”
8. Med shot, Gilmour crossing a makeshift bridge
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“The adolescents I met today have an absolute desire for education and schooling and that is a fundamental human, the right to education. And I would really encourage those concerned to allow education.”
10. Med shot, Gilmour meeting with old man in tent
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“There has to be some form of investment in the future, there has to be some form of allowing people to be educated, getting skills training for the future. Failure to do so, in my view, would be in the interest of nobody at all.”
12. Wide shot, Gilmour meeting with officials
13. Med shot, Gilmour meeting with officials
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“If children do not receive an education not only will they be utterly unprepared to create a livelihood for themselves and their family, but they will almost certainly be radicalised. Now I do not buy, for one moment, the narrative that some of those who were responsible for the ethnic cleansing have been putting out that these are a radical population. But it is a self-fulfilling prophecy; if they are driven into conditions that are so bad and deprived of all hope then surely they will become radicalised.”
15. Wide shot, Gilmour looking at makeshift tents
16. Tracking shot, Gilmour walking down hill

Storyline

During a visit to Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour said the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar continues adding that there was an attempt to destroy their “human future livelihoods” as the population still faces killings and large-scale rapes.

Gilmour ended a four-day visit to Bangladesh that focused on the situation of the approximately 700,000 refugees who have fled from Myanmar since last August.

The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said the rate of killings and sexual violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has subsided since August and September last year; but recently arrived Rohingya interviewed by Gilmour and other UN officials in Cox’s Bazar provided credible accounts of continued killings, rape, torture, and abductions, as well as forced starvation. Gilmour described the stories he heard as “truly harrowing” adding that there was a “real consistent nature of the atrocities that they still suffer.”

The UN Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) said the Government of Myanmar was telling the world that it was ready to receive Rohingya returnees while at the same time driving them into Bangladesh.

SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Nobody wants to reward the ethnic cleansers on the Myanmar side who have driven them out but at the same time one cannot force people to go back into what could be certain death. What is going on at the moment, not only are there still killings, are there still rapes on a large scale, not only are they driving people out with force and threats but also there is a, it seems almost systematic, attempt to destroy their human future livelihoods.”

Gilmour, adolescents he met had an absolute desire for education and schooling. He said there had to be some form of investment in the future adding that failure to do so “would be in the interest of nobody at all.”

SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations:
“If children do not receive an education not only will they be utterly unprepared to create a livelihood for themselves and their family, but they will almost certainly be radicalised. Now I do not buy, for one moment, the narrative that some of those who were responsible for the ethnic cleansing have been putting out that these are a radical population. But it is a self-fulfilling prophecy; if they are driven into conditions that are so bad and deprived of all hope then surely they will become radicalised.”

Gilmour underlined the broad consensus that it is inconceivable to expect refugees to return to Myanmar at this point. He said this was based on three factors: the immediate threat of almost certain killings, rape and other forms of violence; the impossibility of living there in the short term given that all sources of food and livelihood have been destroyed or declared off-limits for most of the remaining Rohingya; and the apparent absence in the longer term of any will to address the root causes of this issue, which has resulted from decades-long policies of discrimination against the Rohingya, particularly the refusal of Myanmar authorities to recognise their right to self-identification and to grant them citizenship.