Mumbai NGO to send aid for Rohingyas

MUMBAI: Responding to

Bangladesh

government's appeal to the international community for help to deal with the refugee crisis, city-headquartered

NGO Red Crescent Society of India

(

RCSI

) plans to send aid to relief camps of Rohingyas in Bangladesh. Initially, help will be taken to the camps in Myanmar-Bangladesh border towns

Cox Bazar

and

Teknaf

.

Moved by stories of persecution, dispossession and forced displacement of Rohingyas, RCSI chairman Arshad Siddiqui said since his organization had helped people in distress earlier, he wants to do something for Rohingyas too.

“Our organization aims at providing humanitarian aid to people in situations arising due to natural calamities or war.“ Siddiqui added that his NGO would soon send food, clothes, blankets, tents, drinking water and a group of doctors and paramedical staff to treat the ill and the injured in the camps.

Over three lakh Rohingyas have fled home in

Myanmar

and taken refuge in Bangladesh. The NGO has already received favourable response from Bangladesh authorities and is awaiting a go-ahead from the ministry of external affairs (MEA), New Delhi.

The police have refused permission to hold protest meets against persecution of Rohingya at Azad Maidan. A protest meet against anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar at Azad Maidan had turned into rioting in 2012.