Myanmar takes back one Rohingya family
> Rights groups slam move as publicity stunt
YANGON: Myanmar’s government said it has repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees, among 700,000 who fled a brutal crackdown, but the move was slammed by rights groups as a publicity stunt which ignored warnings of the returnees’ security.
The Muslim minority has been massing in squalid refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh since the Myanmar army launched a ruthless campaign against the community in Rakhine in August.
The UN says the operation amounts to ethnic cleansing, but Myanmar has denied the charge, saying its troops targeted Rohingya militants.
Bangladesh and Myanmar vowed to begin repatriation in January but the plan has been repeatedly delayed as both sides blame the other for a lack of preparation.
According to a Myanmar statement posted on Saturday, one refugee family became the first to be processed in newly built reception centres earlier in the day.
“The five members of a family ... came back to Taungpyoletwei town repatriation camp in Rakhine this morning,” said a statement posted on the official Facebook of the government’s information committee.
Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner, Mohammad Abul Kalam, said the family had been living in a camp on a patch of “no man’s land” between the two countries.
Several thousand Rohingya have been living in the zone since August, crammed into a cluster of tents beyond a barbedwire fence which roughly demarcates the border zone between the two countries.
“They were not under our jurisdiction, therefore, we cannot confirm whether there would be more people waiting to go back (to Myanmar),” Mohammad Abul said.
A Rohingya community leader in the camp also confirmed the family’s return.
According to the Myanmar statement, immigration authorities gave the family national verification cards, a form of ID that falls short of citizenship and has been rejected by Rohingya leaders.
Photos posted alongside the statement showed one man, two women, a young girl and a boy receiving the ID cards and getting health checks.
It said that the family had been sent to stay “temporarily” with relative in Maungdaw town after “finishing the repatriation process”.
Andrea Giorgetta from the International Federation for Human Rights blasted the repatriation announcement as “a public relations exercise in an attempt to deflect attention from the need for accountability for crimes committed in Rakhine”. – AFP