Myanmar Approves Fewer Than 400 Rohingya Refugees For First Repatriation Round from Bangladesh

Special to BenarNews
2018.03.14
180314-BD-ROHINGYA-620.jpg Rohingya refugees gather outside their makeshift homes on land belonging to a Bangladeshi farmer near the Kutapalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar district, southeastern Bangladesh, Feb. 9, 2018.
Reuters

Myanmar has informed Bangladesh that it will take back fewer than 400 Rohingya refugees out of more than 8,000 who want to return voluntarily to northern Rakhine state from which they fled a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military, a government official said Wednesday.

Myint Thu, permanent secretary of Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during a press conference in Naypyidaw that the country had verified that 374 refugees on the list of 8,032, which Bangladesh had submitted to Myanmar officials in February, were eligible for repatriation.

“We have sent the list [of 374 refugees] to the Bangladeshi embassy in Yangon today, and the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka is going to forward it to Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry,” Myint Thu said. “We are ready to receive these 374 refugees. We have asked Bangladesh to fill out the incomplete forms of the rest.”

Some 1 million Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine state are sheltering at squalid refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, including close to 700,000 who fled a violent crackdown by the Myanmar military following deadly attacks by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents in August 2017. The crackdown in Rakhine has amounted to ethnic cleansing, if not genocide, the U.N. and United States have said.

Earlier this week, Yanghee Lee, the U.N.’s human rights envoy in Myanmar, and Marzuki Darusman, the Indonesian chairman of a U.N.-appointed international fact-finding mission on human rights in Myanmar, issued damning reports on the violent expulsion of Rohingya. They cited hundreds of interviews with victims and eyewitnesses about reported human rights violations. Lee said the crackdown bore the “hallmarks of genocide.”

Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to repatriate refugees who can prove they had lived in northern Rakhine prior to Oct. 9, 2016, the date of a smaller-scale ARSA attack. But the program, slated to begin in late January has been beset by delays, with each side blaming the other.

Aung Tun Thet, chief coordinator of the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development (UEHRD), an organization set up by Myanmar’s government to handle refugee resettlements and development plans for impoverished Rakhine state, told the media that the international community’s accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing were not reasonable.

“No country receives back refugees if it is accused of genocide or ethnic cleansing, but we are taking the refugees back even though we have been accused of this,” he said, adding that there had been no cases of either crime anywhere in Myanmar.

He also took issue with the U.N.’s estimate of refugees who fled to Bangladesh from northern Rakhine after the Aug. 25 ARSA attack, putting the number at 530,000.

Also, during the meeting on Wednesday, Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay said authorities had arrested more than 380 Rohingya based on background checks of those on the list, and had charged 248 of them under anti-terrorism laws.

He also said the government had taken action against a military commander and senior police officer involved in the Rohingya crisis, without further elaboration.

Bangladeshi leader complains

On Wednesday, senior officials in Myanmar and a U.N. spokesman said that talks with U.N. agencies had begun to see how they could assist with the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, the Associated Press reported.

In Singapore, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged Myanmar to cooperate on repatriating the refugees, whom she described as a burden on her impoverished country of 160 million people.

“Despite commitments by the Myanmar authorities, the flow of Rohingya into Bangladesh continues till today,” she told The Straits Times of Singapore during a state visit to the city-state this week.

“Creating a conducive environment in the Rakhine state in terms of ensuring safety and security, rebuilding of destroyed villages and houses, creating livelihood options, and granting due rights to the returnees are crucial,” she said.

“These are primarily the responsibilities of the Myanmar authorities. Now, it depends on their sincerity,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

The U.N. has expressed concern about the creation of conditions that will allow for the safe, dignified, and voluntary return of refugees in accordance with international principles.

This report was produced by Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews.

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