Opinion | As Rohingya crisis worsens, public support is high in Australia and New Zealand to take them in

Name: Refugees from Bangladesh survive 15 days at sea to reach Indonesia aboard small boat
Uploaded: 2023-03-02T08:00:17.000Z
Duration: 1 min 54 s
Description: Refugees from Bangladesh survive 15 days at sea to reach Indonesia aboard small boat

In surveys conducted last year, a majority of Australians and New Zealanders said they support the resettlement of more Rohingya refugees in their countries

Australia’s response to the Rohingya crisis has been to provide humanitarian aid, but has resisted calls to resettle any of the refugees from the camps

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Rohingya rest on Lampanah Leungah beach after landing in Aceh province, Indonesia on February 16, 2023. Photo: AP

Anthony WareandKristina Kironska

Published: 4:00pm, 2 Mar 2023Updated: 4:54pm, 2 Mar 2023

Nearly one million stateless Rohingya Muslims who fled brutal ethnic cleansing in Myanmar have been languishing in extremely congested refugee camps in Bangladesh for the past five-and-a-half years.

While the United States recently announced a resettlement programme for Rohingya refugees and Britain resettled around 300 Rohingya from the camps before 2020 under a now-defunct scheme, this hasn’t caused even a dent in the number of people living in the world’s largest refugee camp.

No other countries have accepted refugee applications from the camps, but the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has expressed optimism that a good number of Rohingya may eventually be resettled by the US and others.

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Refugees from Bangladesh survive 15 days at sea to reach Indonesia aboard small boat

Since 2008, Australia has granted visas to just 470 Rohingya under its special humanitarian programme – a very small number considering the extreme need.

All of these refugees were accepted into the programme from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries in the region. This creates a perverse incentive for Rohingya from the Bangladesh camps to get on rickety boats and make the dangerous sea journey to those countries.

UN figures show a more than 360 per cent surge in the number of Rohingya who boarded boats to try to get to Malaysia and Indonesia last year, with 3,500 making the journey, compared to just 700 in 2021.

Australia is relatively more resourceful, so I think it’s high time Australia come forward and resettle some more of those distressed people

AK Abdul Momen, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister

In early February, Momen called on Australia to do more to resettle the Rohingya stranded in his country.