By NewAge World
The Myanmar government claimed that it started receiving
Rohingyas from ‘camps’ what the Bangladesh authorities described as a
misinformation drive.
‘No one from Rohingya camps in Bangladesh has gone to
Myanmar as the two countries are yet to start repatriation,’ refugee relief and
repatriation commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam told New Age Monday evening,
adding that ‘It might be a part of their propaganda.’
Myanmar state counsellor Aung Sun Suu Kyi’s office
claimed, in a statement on Sunday, that the first batch of 58 Rohingyas from
the camps arrived in reception centres in Rakhine State of Myanmar.
The Myanmar president pardoned the 58 displaced Rohingyas
who were arrested while taking an attempt to re-enter Myanmar from Bangladesh,
it said.
These returnees were arrested under the ‘existing laws’
and some of them were jailed.
They would be transferred, after the verification, to
transit camps constructed for returned Rohingya, the Myanmar government said.
Asked about the preparation of the Myanmar government on
taking back Rohingya people, a foreign ministry official said that the Myanmar
government and the UNHCR were yet to sign an agreement for facilitating return,
resettlement and reintegration of the Rohingyas.
The Chinese authorities stressed the need that Bangladesh
should start repatriation of forcibly displace Rohingyas living in Cox’s Bazar
camps despite the fact that Myanmar was not ready to take back them in Rakhine
State.
Chinese special envoy on Asian affairs Sun Guoxiang said,
in a meeting with foreign ministry officials on May 24, that Bangladesh should
start resolving the Rohingya crisis with sending the first batch of the
minority group to Rakhine State of Myanmar.
About 7,00,000 Rohingyas, mostly women, children and aged
people, entered Bangladesh fleeing unbridled murder, arson and rape during
‘security operations’ by Myanmar military in Rakhine, what the United Nations
denounced as ethnic cleansing and genocide, beginning from August 25, 2017.
The ongoing Rohingya influx took the number of
undocumented Myanmar nationals and registered refugees in Bangladesh to about
11, 16,000, according to estimates by UN agencies and Bangladesh foreign
ministry.
The two governments signed three instruments since
November 23, 2017, for return of forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals sheltered
in Bangladesh after October 2016, as the Rohingya exodus from Rakhine State
continued.