Azhar imam to visit Rohingya refugee camps in Bang. in Nov.

CAIRO – 16 November 2017: Grand Imam of Al Azhar and Chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders Ahmad el Tayyeb will visit the camps of Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh late November.

During his visit, Tayyeb is expected to meet with senior officials and a number of scholars in Bangladesh.

Under Secretary of Al Azhar Abbas Shoman and Secretary General of the council Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi will hold a press conference on Sunday to announce the details of Tayyeb’s visit.

The visit comes at the time the highest Sunni Muslim institution completes preparations for delivering the first relief and aid convoy to support hundreds of thousands of the Rohingya Muslim refugees, who suffer from difficult humanitarian and living conditions.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled violence in Myanmar displacing them over the border in Bangladesh, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Most of the refugees are women and children.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority that live in the mostly Buddhist country of Myanmar. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, has called the situation a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."