Kuwait has promised to provide four-year university scholarships to 100 girls from the Rohingya refugee community of Bangladesh, said Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) on Sunday.
According to Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA, the scholarships were announced by Kuwait’s Finance House following the signing of an agreement between the KRCS and the Asian University of Bangladesh, which is located in Dhaka.
In an interview with KUNA, KRCS Secretary General Maha Al-Barjas emphasized the importance of education for all, including victims of armed conflict.
She also thanked Kuwait’s private sector for its sponsorship of the organization’s humanitarian efforts, which are focused on relief, education, and health initiatives.
The United Nations and human rights organizations have expressed concern about the condition of the approximately 600,000 Rohingya people who remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Myanmar denies citizenship to members of the Muslim community, claiming they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Burmese military has also been accused of torching Rohingya villages and raping women as part of a massive wave of oppression against the Rakhine state’s Muslim community.
In recent years, over 700,000 Rohingya have fled the conflict, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh.
Between late March and April, two fires at Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh destroyed hundreds of homes in less than two weeks. The fires, along with two other major ones earlier this year, cautioned of low safety conditions in the camps where approximately one million Muslim refugees have been staying since fleeing Myanmar’s military clampdowns.
