RIYADH, 7 December 2020, (TON): Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has organized a fundraising campaign to support the Gambia case filed to readdress and prevent Rohingya genocide. The lawsuit filed in the International Court of Justice, and the fund rose amounted to USD 1.2 million.

OIC consist of 57 Muslim countries. According to the General Secretariat of OIC, Bangladesh was disclosed as the largest contributor to the fund to support Gambia's lawsuit against Rohingya. Bangladesh officially notified at the OIC's foreign ministers conference (CFM) that it has donated USD 500,000 to the OIC fund to finance the Gambian case in ICJ. At the same time, Saudi Arabia deposited USD 300,000, Turkey, Nigeria, and Malaysia each donated USD 100,000. A special fund founded by OIC, Islamic Solidarity Fund, contributed USD 100,000.

The Gambia immediately needed five million US dollars to pay the lawyers of the Foley Hoag Legal Firm of Washington DC. Gambian legal experts headed by Gambia's Justice Minister Dawba A Jallow are also assisting the international lawyers. The Gambia was under severe pressure to pay the Washington-based law firm to prosecute the ICJ case.

According to the calculation of Jallow, the total cost to run the Rohingya genocide case and getting into an international solution can be over ten million US dollars.

The CFM was held last week in Niger, where the Gambia successfully highlighted the payment issue’s concern. Both Bangladesh and the Gambia made a strong appeal to convince the member states to open a specialized fund to run the ICJ Rohingya Genocide case. Bangladesh Foreign Ministry planned to take additional initiatives to raise fund for the Gambia to run the legal battle against the Rohingya cleansing operations and their displacement. Foreign Minister of Bangladesh,  Dr. AK Abdul Momen, to introduce numerous global multilateral platforms to create ‘Friends of Gambia group' in order to make the responsible persons accountable in the suit.

In November 2019, Gambia opened a case at the ICJ to prevent ethnic cleansing of Myanmar. In October 2020 Gambia submitted a file of over 500 pages Memorial, which also encompasses more than 5000 pages of material. The attached material is the evidence and explanation of how the Government of Myanmar is responsible for genocide against Rohingya.