Myanmar tries to convince Rohingya on ID cards

DHAKA: Myanmar oficials visited camps for Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh on Wednesday in an effort to kickstart a process to repatriate hundreds of thousands who led an army crackdown last year.

More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees crossed into Bangladesh from western Myanmar, UN agencies say, after Rohingya insurgent attacks on Myanmar security forces in August 2017 triggered a sweeping military response.

Oficials said after meetings in Dhaka on Tuesday returns would begin next month, but the UN refugee agency said conditions in Rakhine state were “not yet conducive for returns.” The agency had completed the second phase of assessment in Rakhine, but its access remained “limited”, UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said in Geneva on Wednesday.

Rohingya and other Muslims in three townships suffer hardship and economic vulnerability due to restrictions on their movement and the prevailing sentiment is “fear and mistrust”, he said.

A group of about 60 Rohingya community leaders met a delegation of about a dozen Myanmar oficials in the Kutupalong camp, the largest refugee settlement in the world in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar district, said two Rohingya men who were present.

Myanmar says it has been ready to accept back the refugees since January, and has built camps near the border to receive them.

Myint Thu, permanent secretary at Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and leader of the Myanmar delegation, said Myanmar had veriied about 5,000 names of refugees and that repatriation would begin with a irst batch of 2,000 returnees in mid-november.