Rohingya refugees prepare to return home
COX’S BAZAR: Myanmar officials said late on Sunday the country was ready to receive more than 2,000 Rohingya Muslims sheltering in Bangladesh on Nov 15, the first group from 5,000 people to be moved under a deal between the neighbours struck last month.
But more than 20 individuals on a list of potential returnees submitted by Bangladesh said they will refuse to go back to northern Rakhine state from where they fled. Bangladesh has said it will not force anyone to do so.
The United Nations also says conditions are not yet safe for their return, in part because Myanmar Buddhists have been protesting against the repatriation. The UN’s refugee agency said late on Sunday that Rohingya refugees should be allowed to go and see the conditions in Myanmar before they decide to go back.
“It depends on the other country, whether this will actually happen or not,” said Win Myat Aye, Myanmar’s Minister for Social Welfare and Resettlement in Yangon on Sunday, referring to Bangladesh.
“But we must be ready from our side. We have done that.”
Abul Kalam, Bangladesh Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, said he was hopeful the process could begin on Thursday.
“The return will be voluntary. Nobody will be forced to go back,” he said.
The countries agreed on mid-November for the start of repatriating some of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled a sweeping army crackdown in Myanmar last year.
They say soldiers and local Buddhists massacred families, burned hundreds of villages, and carried out gang-rapes. UN-mandated investigators have accused the army of “genocidal intent” and ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar denies almost all of the allegations, saying security forces were battling terrorists. Attacks by Rohingya insurgents calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army preceded the crackdown.
Myanmar does acknowledge the killing of 10 Rohingya by security forces in Inn Dinn village. Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years in prison earlier this year for allegedly breaking the country’s Official Secrets Act after reporting on the massacre.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called for Myanmar to allow Rohingya refugees to visit their places of origin or resettlement sites to make their own “independent assessment of whether they feel they can return there in safety and dignity”.
“Myanmar authorities should allow these refugees to undertake such go-and-see visits without prejudice to their right to return at a later date,” the agency said in the statement late on Sunday.
Win Myat Aye said preparations had been made for 2,251 people to be transported to two transit centres by boat on Thursday, while a second group of 2,095 could follow later by road.
Once processed by the authorities, they would be sent to another centre where they would be housed, fed, and asked to build homes through cash-for-work schemes.
Returnees would only be allowed to travel within Maungdaw township, one of the three they fled, and only if they accepted National Verification Cards, an identity document most Rohingya reject.
Many Rohingya, the majority of whom have been left stateless after decades of persecution, oppose going back without guarantees of citizenship and freedom of movement.