Arakan News Agency
The return of the Muslim Rohingya minority to Arakan under the current situation means their return to a racist apartheid state, said Laura Hay, a Myanmar researcher at Amnesty International.
The Rohingya refugees returning to Myanmar will not receive explicit guarantees of citizenship or freedom of movement in the country under a secret memorandum of understanding between the Myanmar government and the United Nations revealed by a leaked document according to Reuters.
The agency said the agreement provided for the safe return of refugees and grant them freedom of movement in the state of Arakan only, and added that the government of Myanmar did not make concessions on other important issues such as nationality.
The head of the Rohingya Arakan Society for Peace and Human Rights said that UNHCR officials told Rohingya that the agreement was only about allowing aid agencies to enter Arakan, adding that they would not accept the memorandum of understanding.
