Myanmar officials arrived in Bangladesh on Tuesday (31/10) to meet with Rohingya refugees as part of a long-stalled repatriation scheme now backed by China, authorities said.
Bangladesh hosts around one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a Myanmar military crackdown in 2017 that is now the subject of a UN genocide investigation.
This stateless and persecuted minority group lives in overcrowded, dangerous and under-resourced relief camps. Several previous attempts to mediate their return have failed due to reluctance on the part of Myanmar and the refugees themselves.
The team of Myanmar officials arrived in Teknaf, a river port just across their border with Bangladesh, to meet several dozen Rohingya families.
“They will discuss repatriation with the Rohingya today and verify their identities,” Shamsud Douza, Myanmar’s deputy refugee commissioner, told AFP. “The delegates will leave for Myanmar today but will return tomorrow.”
Bangladeshi officials say Myanmar plans to accept back about 3,000 refugees in December as part of a pilot repatriation scheme brokered at a three-way meeting between the two countries and China in April.
“They are ready to accept it. But the Rohingya are not ready to leave. That is the challenge,” a Bangladeshi government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary Afreen Akhter (center) speaks to the media outside the office of the Refugee Assistance and Repatriation commissioner in Coxs Bazar, October 17, 2023. (Tanbir MIRAJ/AFP)
Rohingya community leaders have long said they would only return if they were granted citizenship and resettled on their own land.
“We are interested in returning to our country if Myanmar takes us back to where we came from, gives us dignity and fulfills all our rights,” Khin Maung, a prominent Rohingya leader, told AFP.
“But if our rights are not given, we will wonder,” he said.
The Rohingya are widely viewed in Myanmar as smugglers from Bangladesh, despite living for centuries in the Southeast Asian country, and they are stateless after Myanmar stopped recognizing their citizenship in 2015.
Violence is a fact of life in the camps, where armed groups compete for control of territory.
Malnutrition is also widespread, and the UN food agency says funding shortfalls this year have forced it to cut food rations by a third.
This desperate situation has prompted thousands of Rohingya to make dangerous and often deadly sea journeys to other Southeast Asian countries to escape the camps.
A repatriation plan agreed in 2017 failed to make significant progress in subsequent years, partly because of concerns that the Rohingya would not be safe if they returned. (ab/uh)