The Duchess of Edinburgh told Rohingya refugees in the camps at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh “we won’t walk away” after hearing about the hardships they face.
Sophie visited the world’s largest refugee settlement on Tuesday to see the support being offered to displaced people from Myanmar.
The duchess said: “The reality and hardships that they’re facing is really difficult to see… They have been brave enough to tell me how difficult life is.
“I was here to tell them: ‘We’re with them, we won’t walk away.’”
Sophie spent time hearing about efforts to help women and girls as part of her commitment to the Women, Peace and Security agenda and the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative.
She met children living in Camp 4 and learnt about their education and experiences during her trip.
The duchess visited the Unicef learning centre, and travelled to a Women and Girls’ Safe Space, run by the International Organisation for Migration.
She also toured a soap factory within the camps run by the Programme for Helpless and Lagged Societies (PHALS), a Cox’s Bazar-based NGO working with Rohingya refugees and vulnerable host communities.
The visit aimed to demonstrate how livelihood programmes can strengthen Rohingya women’s economic empowerment and self-reliance where access to formal work is restricted.
Sophie handled the soap and watched the pink blocks being produced and cut in the factory.
Since 2017, more than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees have fled persecution and violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State to find shelter in the densely populated camps in Cox’s Bazar – the world’s largest refugee settlement.
There is concern the Rohingya crisis could fall off the global agenda, with the refugees having been there for nearly 10 years.
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