Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in January 2018
to complete a voluntary repatriation of the refugees in two years but nothing
has moved forward yet.
Rohingya Refugees said "unconditional repatriation is unacceptable, we have faced many times, we don't want to repeat it again and we want sustainable solution".
The director-general of the international
organization and economic department at Myanmar's foreign ministry, U Chan Aye,
said his country was ready to start the process next Thursday, Aug. 22, but was
waiting for the Bangladeshi side to confirm the date. "If the process goes
well, we will start with over 3,600 people," the minister said to the Medias.
Read also “The Repatriation plan may stall,
as it did last year”: https://lnkd.in/gMrD9y3
Rohingya Refugees said "unconditional repatriation is unacceptable, we have faced many times, we don't want to repeat it again and we want sustainable solution".
The Myanmar government said Friday it was
prepared for Bangladesh to repatriate more than 3,600 Rohingya refugees who
fled violence in the western state of Rakhine two years ago after a
military-led crackdown against the Muslim minority.
The director-general of the international
organization and economic department at Myanmar's foreign ministry, U Chan Aye,
said his country was ready to start the process next Thursday, Aug. 22, but was
waiting for the Bangladeshi side to confirm the date. "If the process goes
well, we will start with over 3,600 people," the minister said to the Medias.
Read also: Unconditional repatriation is
unacceptable:
https://lnkd.in/gcF9Yxy
The move comes one and half year later; a
major repatriation attempt floundered when Rohingya refugees refused to return
to the country they fled amid fears of more violence against them.
Mohammed Eliyas, a spokesman of ARSPH (Arakan
Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights) said refugees had not been
consulted about the process. “The government of Myanmar should agree to the key
demands of the community before repatriation begins, Eliyas, spokesman of ARSPH
said.
Read: Repatriation Must be Voluntary, Safe
and Dignified https://t.co/m8l2fWSOoo
The Rohingya mass exodus began Aug. 25, 2017,
when Myanmar's army launched an offensive in Rakhine state, bordering
Bangladesh, with the purported aim of suppressing Rohingya insurgents.
The minority group is not recognized by
authorities in Nay Pyi Taw who consider them to be Bangladeshi immigrants. The
Myanmar state had not allowed them any citizenship despite having been present
in the country's territory for centuries.
The predominantly-Muslim Rohingya people have
also been subjected to widespread discrimination over the past decades by
Buddhist nationalists.
Since the 2017 crackdown, almost a million
Rohingya refugees – most of them women and children – languish amid poor
sanitary conditions within sprawling refugee camps in the eastern Bangladeshi
coastal city of Cox's Bazaar.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute
(ASPI) in July denounced Myanmar's "minimal preparation" for the
return of Rohingya refugees through an analysis of satellite images of the
region.
According to the ASPI, some 320 out of the
392 Rohingya villages that were razed to the ground during the 2017 military
operation show no signs of reconstruction.
United Nations observers have described the
army crackdown as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and
"possible genocide" and underlined the need for a return process that
is safe, dignified and voluntary.
Meanwhile, another 125,000 Rohingya still live
in segregated conditions as internally-displaced persons - in IDP camps called
Ghettos - within Rakhine since an outburst of religious violence in 2012.
By @mir_sidiquee, major sources are collected from global medias & Rohingya refugee camps.