I believe that all humanitarian efforts and pressure on the Government for access should be retained but that other non-essential programmes should be reviewed so that we can consider what to do to bring an end to the violence and find a longer-term solution that brings peace to the region and protects the Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar.
As the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Burma, I have been aware of the discrimination and mistreatment that the Rohingya have endured for decades. In 2013, following a series of violent clashes in 2012 that left more than 100,000 people internally displaced, I visited Myanmar with Refugees International and the Burma Campaign. I heard stories of how Rohingya communities had fled violent attacks to remote areas of the countryside. In Rakhine state, the camps where Rohingya had been forced to live were horrific, with little or no access to humanitarian aid or healthcare. Some of that pressure was relieved, but international agencies had limited access. I travelled by boat to a UNHCR-supported camp in Pauktaw and have vivid memories of the shores nearby being covered in faeces and of dead rats floating just metres away from children bathing to keep cool in the unbearable heat. I remember being told stories of loved ones being killed and of children dying from a lack of healthcare and women from a lack of support in childbirth.