On Thursday 2 July, the spokesperson for the European External Action Service called on Asian countries, including ASEAN countries, to further engage with the government of Myanmar to ensure it increases its efforts “towards a just and durable solution to the Rohingya issue in line with international law and human rights principles”.
Welcoming Indonesia’s decision to allow safe disembarkation and to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to the more than one hundred Rohingya refugees stranded off the northern coast of Aceh last week, the spokesperson noted that “the plight of the Rohingya cannot be solved by the humanitarian action of benevolent countries alone”. In its communiqué, it therefore called on Myanmar to create the conditions enabling their safe, sustainable, dignified and voluntary return to their places of origin, including through the credible implementation of the recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, which it had endorsed, and in accordance with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.
The spokesperson announced that the EU, in cooperation with the Indonesian authorities, the UN and humanitarian organisations, would therefore mobilise humanitarian aid to address the most pressing basic needs of the affected refugees. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)