Duchess of Edinburgh Visits Rohingya Refugee Camps in Bangladesh

Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, is on a three-day visit to Bangladesh at the request of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the UK government department that handles foreign relations and overseas aid. The visit centres on the Rohingya, a Muslim minority who fled Myanmar and now live in refugee camps near Cox's Bazar, a coastal town in south-eastern Bangladesh.

Hello Magazine reported on the trip on 10 November 2026. According to that report, the Duchess went to the camps to see the support on offer to people displaced from Myanmar. She also toured the camps' facilities and spoke with the people who run and use them.

Among the children she met was a Class 6 student from Camp 4 named Mohammad Obaid. The Duchess asked the children about their schooling and their lives in the camp. Mohammad told her that if he gets the chance, he will become an engineer and help his community. He asked her to help him and other children get the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

The Duchess visited a UNICEF Learning Centre. UNICEF is the United Nations children's agency, and its centres give young people a place to study. She also went to a Women and Girls' Safe Space, run by the International Organisation for Migration, a UN body that works with displaced people. These spaces offer women and girls a secure place to gather and get support.

In the camps, she toured a soap factory run by the Programme for Helpless and Lagged Societies, known as PHALS. The factory gives work to people living there, and it made soap for use in the camps.

The trip is one of several visits the Duchess makes on behalf of the government and charities. Her work of this kind is not paid for by the public purse in the same way as the official duties of the monarch, so it does not appear in the same accounts. Further details of the schedule and any outcomes have not yet been published by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.