Hasina wants India to pressurise Myanmar to take back Rohingyas
Pressure must be kept on Myanmar government to take back their Rohingya people, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in the presence of her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Santiniketan on Friday.
“There are 11 lakh Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. We have given them shelter due to humanitarian consideration, we want them to go back to their land. We cannot help offering shelter to oppressed people. We appeal to all to keep up pressure on the government of Myanmar to take them back,” Hasina said during the inauguration of Bangladesh Bhavan, a centre to further cultural cooperation between India and Bangladesh.
“When the question of giving them shelter in Bangladesh was raised, I said if we could feed 16 crore people. We could also offer food to a few lakhs. If need be, we would share our food,” said Hasina, who turned emotional during the speech.
Accommodating Rohingya refugees is an issue on which the establishments in Delhi and
KOLKATA:
Dhaka differ. Settlement of refugees from Myanmar is an issue that also divides the ruling party of West Bengal and the establishment in Delhi.
While the Modi government wants to deport all Rohingya refugees, who are considered as the most persecuted ethnic minority in the world, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has expressed support for them last year.
Several dozens of Rohingya families have been accommodated in different villages of the South 24 Parganas district by NGOs, an initiative that received the tacit support of local Trinamool Congress leaders.
The Bangladesh Prime Minister also hinted at the thorny issue of sharing Teesta waters with India, but did not mention it by name in the inauguration programme.