Myanmar sends Rohingya repatriation delegation to Bangladesh

Delegation to speak with Rohingya whom Dhaka listed for repatriation, says Bangladeshi refugee commissioner of host country

By Md. Kamruzzaman

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AA) — A 22-member delegation from Myanmar arrived in Bangladesh on Wednesday to discuss a project to repatriate Rohingya Muslims, according to official sources.

The delegation of immigration officials reached Cox's Bazar, a border district which hosts more than a million Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017, for talks with Rohingya camp residents about possible repatriation to their native Rakhine State in Myanmar.

Speaking to Anadolu, Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, said the Myanmar side was unable to conduct background checks on 429 Rohingya out of over 1,100 listed as a potential first batch of returnees, and so wanted to meet with them in person.

Bangladesh handed this list to Myanmar in 2022 to start the repatriation scheme.

"The delegation will mostly talk to those Rohingya about whom Myanmar is confused. This visit is being conducted as part of joint move of starting Rohingya repatriation by our two countries," Rahman told Anadolu.

The RRRC office will facilitate the meeting between the Rohingya and the Myanmar delegation team.

Since 2017 several such meetings were held between Rohingya refugees and Myanmar delegations over the impending repatriation, but the move was finally slowed as Rohingya people declined to go back Myanmar on safety grounds.

Community leaders of the persecuted people have been demanding that their citizenship rights be returned before any repatriation commences with the presence of UN representatives.

They want to return to their original homes in Rakhine State, from where they had been forcefully displaced. Under a controversial 1986 Citizenship Law, the military junta of Myanmar suspended the citizenship of many Rohingya residents of Rakhine State.

Bangladesh currently hosts more than 1.2 million Rohingya in the country's southern border district of Cox's Bazar in 33 congested refugee camps.

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