EU, US, UN to co-host virtual aid conference for Rohingya refugees

A online international donor conference to raise urgently-needed funds for Rohingya refugees will be held on 22 October, co-hosted by the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.

The co-hosts announced the conference on Thursday, saying that less than half of the $1 billion in aid sought by the UN in 2020 had been raised.

"The Rohingya people have faced horrific brutality and were forced to flee their homes in the worst circumstances imaginable," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in the statement.

"We have taken action against the architects of this systemic violence, including through sanctions and we will continue to hold those responsible to account," he said.

More than one million people currently reside in the makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh's south, where cramped conditions and water is endangering lives.

Read more: Over 100,000 Muslim Rohingya living in Myanmar ‘open-air prisons’ as crisis deepens: HRW

Inside Myanmar, nearly 130,000 Rohingya Muslims live in what Amnesty International describe as "apartheid" conditions in camps around Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State.