Islamic Iran Ready to Dispatch Medical Teams to Myanmar

Head of the Basij Organization of Iran’s Medical Society Mohammad Rayeeszadeh voiced the society’s readiness to dispatch medics, nurses and relief and rescue forces to help Myanmar’s Muslims who are under the daily attacks of the majority in the Southeast Asian country.

“The Basij (volunteer) organization of the Medical Society is prepared to dispatch emergency teams of physicians, nurses and rescue workers to Myanmar,” Rayeeszadeh told FNA on Saturday.

He further called on the relevant governmental bodies to pave the ground for the dispatch of Iranian medics to Myanmar.

Rayeeszadeh announced that his organization has so far dispatched medical teams to Somalia, Lebanon, Kenya, Somalia and Iraq.

The government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas, who it claims are not natives and classifies as illegal migrants, although the Rohingya are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Burma as early as the 8th century.

Even Myanmar’s so-called democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has kept quiet on the atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslims.

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein said Rohingya Muslims must be expelled from the country and sent to refugee camps run by the United Nations.

The UN says decades of discrimination have left the Rohingyas stateless, with Myanmar implementing restrictions on their movement and withholding land rights, education and public services.

Since June, hundreds of members of the nearly-six-million-strong Rohingya Muslim minority have been killed and tens of thousands of others among them have been displaced in the west of the country due to a wave of communal violence.

Over the past two years, waves of ethnic Muslims have attempted to flee by boats in the face of systematic oppression by the Myanmar government.