Bangladesh has signed a deal to involve the United Nations in the controversial process of returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, a minister said Monday.Junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam said the government was involving the UN refugee agency so that it could not be accused of sending anyone from the stateless Muslim minority back against their will.He gave few details, but said refugees would be asked to fill out repatriation forms in the presence of UN officials.Bangladesh reached a deal with Myanmar late last year to repatriate the nearly 700,000 Rohingya who have fled across the border since August to escape a brutal military crackdown.That was meant to start last month, but was delayed by a lack of preparations and protests by Rohingya refugees, most of whom say they do not wish to return without guarantees of safety.”We have repeatedly said this repatriation process is very complex,” Alam told reporters.”We want to fill up the (repatriation) forms in their (UN) presence so that no one can say they been forced by someone or sent back against their will,” he told reporters at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh’s southeastern border district of Cox’s Bazar.There was no immediate comment from the UN, which has said previously that any repatriation must be voluntary.Alam urged patience and said Bangladesh did not want to send back the refugees only to have them return, as has happened after past rounds of repatriation.Bangladesh “wants to make sure the situation in Myanmar is safe and secure”, he said.Refugees… [Read full story]
Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Tuesday (Nov 21) that she hopes talks with Bangladesh this week will result in a memorandum of understanding on the “safe and voluntary return” of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh in the past three months. Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi attends the 13th Asia Europe Foreign Ministers Meeting (ASEM) in Naypyitaw A counter-insurgency operation launched in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya out of the Buddhist-majority country since late August.Rights groups have accused Myanmar’s military of atrocities, including mass rape, against Rohingya during the…... [read more]
Rohingya are still fleeing into Bangladesh even after an agreement was signed with Myanmar to repatriate hundreds of thousands of the Muslim minority displaced along the border, officials said Monday. An estimated 624,000 Rohingya have fled a military crackdown in Myanmar since August The arrangement struck by the neighbours on Thursday raised the prospect of at least 700,000 Rohingya Muslims living in overcrowded camps in southeastern Bangladesh being returned to Myanmar. But at least 3,000 refugees have crossed since then, the United Nations said in its latest report on the crisis, with guards at check-posts along the frontier also reporting…... [read more]
Bangladesh and Myanmar will start repatriating refugees in two months, Dhaka said Thursday, as global pressure mounts over a crisis that has forced more than half a million Rohingya to flee across the border. The United Nations says 620,000 Rohingya Muslims have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in Myanmar in August, to form the world's largest refugee camp The United Nations says 620,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since August and now live in squalor in the world's largest refugee camp after a military crackdown in Myanmar that Washington said this week clearly constitutes "ethnic cleansing".After months of…... [read more]
The United Nations has deemed the systematic repression and displacement of more than 600,000 ethnic Rohingya – Muslims living without even basic rights in a majority-Buddhist country – a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing.”On Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed on to that designation, with senior State Department officials saying that the determination by the US of “ethnic cleansing” is meant to “express our sense of urgency about the situation.”The designation aims to “put pressure on the military in Burma,” another name for Myanmar, “to act quickly” to secure conditions in Rakhine state, where the Rohingya live, and to…... [read more]
Rohingya refugees wait at a relief centre after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in the Teknaf area, Bangladesh, November 23, 2017 (Photo Reuters/VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to takeassistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) to repatriatehundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh to Myanmar.BangladeshForeign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said on November 25 that the threesides will establish a joint working group within three weeks to fix the termsfor the repatriation of Rohingya Muslims.Thepriority is to ensure safety, he said, adding that Rohingya people willinitially have to live in temporary shelters or camps after…... [read more]
