Rohingya Action North East

09/12/2025

The teen has been found safe

25/07/2025

05/06/2025

Holyrood’s Cross-Party Group on Bangladesh

I am deeply grateful to Foysol Choudhury MSP for the kind invitation to attend the recent meeting of the Holyrood Cross-Party Group (CPG) on Bangladesh, held on Tuesday, 3 June 2025. It was an honour to address the group and provide updates, including confirmation of the UK’s first Rohingya Memorial Stone in Bradford, which will be officially unveiled on 25 August 2025. This memorial will serve as a powerful reminder of the ongoing hardships faced by the Rohingya people and a tribute to the victims and survivors of the crisis.

CPG Convenors Foysol Choudhury MSP and Miles Briggs MSP graciously accepted the invitation to attend the unveiling ceremony, underscoring their continued commitment to raising awareness and driving action on humanitarian issues.

The meeting, chaired by MSPs Choudhury and Briggs, focused on the escalating humanitarian situation. We heard a vital update from Mohammad Jobayed Hosen, Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Manchester, and a compelling remote briefing by Maruf Mohammad Shehab, Head of Innovation and Resource Mobilisation Partnerships at ActionAid UK, who joined us from Bangladesh. Mr Shehab detailed ActionAid’s critical work on the ground in Cox’s Bazar.

Geraldine O’Callaghan, Director at the United Nations World Food Programme’s Global Office in London, highlighted the severe food insecurity facing Rohingya refugees. Due to significant funding shortfalls, food rations have been drastically reduced—placing an already vulnerable population, particularly children, at further risk of malnutrition.

The CPG expressed urgent concerns about the diminishing international attention and appealed for immediate and sustained support, especially in light of recent USAID funding cuts. MSPs Choudhury and Briggs, drawing on their 2023 visit to Cox’s Bazar, emphasised the urgent need for enhanced healthcare infrastructure—especially in the areas of vaccination and disease prevention.

I look forward to ongoing collaboration with the Holyrood CPG and the Government of Bangladesh as we continue working together in support of the Rohingya community and broader humanitarian efforts.

24/05/2025

Dire humanitarian conditions in Myanmar and Bangladesh are driving more Rohingya to risk dangerous boat journeys to safety, such as one this month that ended in a sinking and estimates of 427 deaths, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

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09/05/2025

The protests came a day after a group of Jewish peace activists from Columbia traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby members of Congress and to condemn what they call the “weaponization” of accusations of antisemitism to silence critics of Israel's occu...

09/05/2025

Mu’tasim Raddad, a former Palestinian detainee released from Israeli custody as part of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal between Palestinian resis.tance groups and Israeli authorities, has died in an Egyptian hospital. His death was caused by severe health complications stemming from medical negligence during his imprisonment, which led to the development of intestinal cancer. Raddad had endured 18 years in Israeli detention before being released and forcibly deported from his homeland.

07/05/2025

07/05/2025

07/05/2025

Attacks on, smears, and abductions of students fighting for an end to US-backed violence around the world: we have been here before. Over the past 18 months, students on campuses across the US have built upon the proud legacy of anti-racist, anti-war student protest to reject US complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The US government and university administrations have responded with brutal crackdowns—suspending, disappearing, and censoring students when they should be safeguarding their right to protest.

Just like at Kent State in 1970, students today are standing against the deliberate killing of civilians. They’re demanding an end to mass violence and war crimes—and for that they are being silenced. Successive US administrations have attacked their right to protest to suppress dissent against some of the most horrific human rights violations of our time.

The students are on the right side of history–and they deserve to be protected.

07/05/2025

Today is World Press Freedom Day. In the past 18 months, Israel has killed at least 216 journalists and media workers in Gaza. That’s more journalists than were killed in World War I and World War II combined.

Israel has bombed media tents, burning journalists alive. It has shot and killed journalists in clearly marked press vests. It has bombed the homes of journalists, killing them and their entire families sheltering inside. It has even released so-called “kill lists” of Palestinian journalists.

Israel is deliberately targeting Gaza’s truth-tellers, those who have dedicated their lives to reporting on Israel’s inhumane violence and documenting its war crimes. It’s doing this to silence the truth about its genocide.

International press workers must speak out and show up for their Palestinian colleagues when they need them most. They must refuse to bow to censorship, taking the lead of Palestinian journalists who continue to report on Israel’s atrocities under the most extreme conditions, despite the grave risks to their lives.

A free press is one unafraid to report the full truth, calling out Israel’s actions for what they are—genocide.

Sources: Al Jazeera, Committee to Protect Journalists, International Media Support