Gambia offers to take in all Rohingya migrants

(Image credit: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

published 21 May 2015

Rohingya refugees who are fleeing southeast Asia to escape oppression have been offered a home in Gambia.

The Muslim-majority country is not wealthy — the UN's 2013 human development report stated that one-third of the population lives off of $1.25 or less a day, and thousands of migrants have left for Europe, with many dying in the process — so it is also asking other nations to send medicine, bedding, tents, and household items so it can set up "habitable camps with decent sanitary conditions."

In a statement, the government said it was primarily reaching out to offer aid because Muslims were in peril: "The government of Gambia notes with grave concern the inhumane condition of the Rohingya people of Myanmar — especially those referred to as 'boat people' — currently drifting in the seas off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia. As human beings, more so fellow Muslims, it is a sacred duty to help alleviate the untold hardships and sufferings fellow human beings are confronted with."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.