A charity curry night in Burton has helped to raise more than £11,000 for victims of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar as volunteers prepare to head out to distribute aid to those in need.
The Central Rizvia Mosque, in Uxbridge Street, Burton, organised the curry night at the town's Apne Indian restaurant and raised £10,065 on top of £1,100 in ticket sales for the Myanmar's Rohingya victims.
It will be distributed by three members of the Mosque committee and four members of the public who will be flying out to Bangladesh in October. They will be paying out of their own pockets for the trip for everything from flights to accommodation.
The committee decided they wanted to raise the money after hundreds of thousands of people from the Rohingya ethnic minority who have been expelled by the military from lands in western Myanmar, where they have lived for centuries.
More than a quarter of a million Rohingya refugees have now fled the violence in Myanmar and crossed the border to Bangladesh but are in desperate need of supplies. As a stateless Muslim minority group in Myanmar, they have faced discrimination, violence and extreme poverty for decades.
Most have walked for days with children arriving in overcrowded makeshift camps.
The Burton-based committee is organising more events to raise extra cash with a ladies-only dinner on Monday, September 25, and sponsored walks on October 15 and 22.
Tarek Hussain, of the Central Rizvia Mosque committee, said: "It is a current crisis and it is atrocious what is being done by the Burmese government. We are calling on the politicians to take a tougher stance against the Burmese government to help the minorities like the Muslims and Hindus.
"People who want to help can find out more from the Mosque itself and we have been going out into the community. We are now working on getting a letter to Boris Johnson via our MP Andrew Griffiths asking for him to support a tougher stance on the Burmese government.
"Going out to Bangladesh gives them the opportunity to see for themselves what is going on there as they have seen it on the news. The committee hopes that this will mean they will want to do more for other charities and we will then assist them with that."
"I would just like to thank everyone for their generosity. The people who have supported us have been very kind and generous. It is a difficult time financially for everyone but people really have gone the extra mile for charity. Without them it would not have been possible to raise this much.
"I would also like to thank Ajmol Hussain, the owner of Apne, for allowing us to use the premises and sponsoring us. He is truly a remarkable person and he loves supporting charity events."
