Bangladeshi team to visit Myanmar, assess conditions for Rohingya repatriation

DHAKA: A delegation of Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi officials will visit Myanmar on Friday, authorities said, as they hope to start the repatriation process this month.
Although it is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, Bangladesh is hosting and providing humanitarian support to 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims, most of whom fled violence and persecution in neighboring Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.
Their return to Myanmar has been on the UN agenda for years, but the repatriation process has yet to take off, despite pressure from Bangladesh and dwindling international support to host the large community whose presence has turned the country’s southeast into the world’s largest refugee settlement.
In a pilot project mediated by China, a Myanmar delegation visited Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in March to verify a few hundred potential returnees.
The team from Bangladesh will now see whether the current environment in Rakhine State — the area bordering Bangladesh, where most of the Rohingya came from — is safe enough for them to return.
“A 20-member team of Rohingya community leaders will visit Rakhine on Friday. Along with the Rohingya team, a few officials from different departments of the Bangladeshi government will go along,” Bangladeshi Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mizanur Rahman told Arab News on Thursday.
“The team will see the arrangements prepared by Myanmar authorities related to confidence building in regard to the resettlement.”
Rahman added that within a week another delegation from Myanmar will arrive in Cox’s Bazar as talks are ongoing to start the repatriation process in the coming weeks. “It is on the table now to repatriate the first batch of Rohingyas this month. This visit by the Rohingya to Rakhine is a part of that repatriation process,” he said.
“Returning from Rakhine, this team will share their experiences and findings.”
The parties involved in the process do not include the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. Rahman said that while the process is ongoing there is a “plan to engage and take the UN on board in this process.”
In March, the UNHCR distanced itself from the China-mediated program, saying that “conditions in Rakhine State are currently not conducive to the sustainable return of Rohingya refugees.”