Return of refugee family to Burma is ‘PR exercise’

BURMA’S government said it had repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees, among the 700,000 who fled a brutal crackdown, but the move was criticised by human rights groups as a publicity stunt that ignored warnings over the security of returnees.

The stateless Muslim minority has been massing in squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh since the Burmese army launched a campaign against the community in northern Rakhine state last August.

The United Nations has said the operation amounts to ethnic cleansing, but Burma, also known as Myanmar, has denied the charge, saying its troops targeted Rohingya militants.

Bangladesh and Burma vowed to begin repatriation in January but the plan has been repeatedly delayed as both sides blame the other for a lack of preparation.

“The five members of a family... came back to Taungpyoletwei town repatriation camp in Rakhine state this morning,” said a Burmese government statement.

Mohammad Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner, told AFP news agency the Rohingya family had been living in a camp erected on a patch of “no-man’s-land” between the two countries, meaning Dhaka had no formal role in their return.

Several thousand Rohingya have been living in the zone since August, crammed into tents beyond a barbedwire fence that roughly demarcates the border. The rest of the refugees have settled in sprawling camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

“The reality is that the repatriation has not started yet,” Asaduzzaman Khan, Bangladesh’s home affairs minister, said, adding that the single family’s return was “not a meaningful act”.

Andrea Giorgetta, from the International Federation for Human Rights, said it was “a public relations exercise in an attempt to deflect attention from the need for accountability for crimes committed in Rakhine state”.