Arakan News Agency
The forcibly displaced Rohingyas will be repatriated to Myanmar based on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s five-point proposal and the recommendations made by the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission.
The information was disclosed in a statement issued by Home Ministry spokesperson Sharif Mahmood Apu on Wednesday.
A 10-member Bangladeshi delegation led by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal met with State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi around 10am on Wednesday.
According to the statement, Suu Kyi said her government has started working on the repatriation process of the Rohingya who have entered Bangladesh.
During the meeting, Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal also invited Suu Kyi to Bangladesh on behalf of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
In response to the invitation, the Myanmar state counsellor said she would visit Bangladesh at a favourable time for both the counties.
Kamal also informed her about the chances of Rohingyas getting involved in terrorism and militancy if they are not repatriated on time and that might create a problem for both the sides.
On Tuesday, Myanmar agreed to the repatriation of the Rohingyas, boost border security and implementation of other recommendations made in the final report of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Arakan State.
Agreements were reached at a bilateral ministerial meeting between officials of Bangladesh and Myanmar at the latter’s Ministry of Home Affairs in Naypyidaw.
Bangladesh and Myanmar will form a Joint Working Group regarding the repatriation process by the end of November.
Earlier this month, the union minister for the Office of the State Counsellor of Myanmar, Kyaw Tint Swe, had visited Dhaka and told Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali that his country would take back its displaced Rohingya nationals.
Afterwards, the foreign minister had told the reporters that Myanmar had come up with the repatriation proposal and agreed to form the Joint Working Group to start the process.
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission had released its final report on August 24, only one day before the Myanmar security forces’ ferocious crackdown was launched in response to insurgents’ attacks on several police outpost and an army base in Arakan.
Since the beginning of that counteroffensive, which the UN has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, at least 603,000 Rohingyas have fled Arakan and taken refuge in Bangladesh, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
However, following the brutal persecution and influx of the Rohingyas, Myanmar faced massive international pressure demanding investigations into the violence and killings and repatriation of its citizens.
UN migration body termed this crisis as fastest growing crisis in the world that is creating immense pressure on Bangladesh.
Source : dhakatribune
