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By AFP
A Myanmar junta delgation visited Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh on Thursday as a part of a mooted pilot repatriation scheme.
Many of the refugees have been caught in ramshackle camps in southeastern Bangladesh since fleeing a 2017 crackdown by the Myanmar army that’s now topic to a United Nations genocide investigation.
A number of earlier repatriation makes an attempt have failed however Bangladesh and Myanmar wish to return round 1,100 individuals to the violence-racked state of Rakhine within the coming weeks.
Twenty refugees visited two resettlement camps this month in Rakhine, the place the Myanmar junta plans to deal with them in what consultants say is land that for generations belonged to the Rohingya earlier than being confiscated.
The workforce of 14 Myanmar officers, all in civilian garments, arrived by boat within the Bangladeshi border city of Teknaf on Thursday morning, went to the camps and talked to round 200 individuals.
However Mohammad Selim, one of many Rohingya who met the Myanmar delegation, advised AFP by telephone that their calls for had been being ignored.
“We stated that we’ve to return to our personal ancestral home… We advised them they need to give us citizenship. However they stated they’ll give us nationwide verification playing cards, which isn’t citizenship,” Selim stated.
“They repeatedly stated so. There is no such thing as a method we are able to belief them.”
“We’ve no everlasting consultant on this repatriation course of,” Khin Maung, a distinguished Rohingya chief, advised AFP earlier than the assembly.
“This repatriation course of is simply an eyewash. In the event that they didn’t guarantee our dignity, there isn’t any level returning to camps for internally displaced individuals,” he stated.
One Rohingya who is supposed to be repatriated within the pilot undertaking advised AFP on situation of anonymity that they didn’t wish to return and stay in Myanmar “as non-citizens and keep in IDP camps”.
“Our place ought to be given again to us, our proper to stay like different ethnic teams ought to be legally assured. In any other case we can not imagine the mass murderers,” they stated.
Mainul Kabir, head of the Myanmar wing in Bangladesh’s overseas ministry, advised reporters Thursday that repatriation was “the one technique to remedy the Rohingya concern”.
He stated the Myanmar delegation “assured that the confusions which might be being created will probably be resolved progressively”.
Final week, Human Rights Watch criticised the repatriation plan, saying it posed “grave dangers” to the Rohingya.
“Bangladesh is annoyed with its burden as host, however sending refugees again to the management of a ruthless Myanmar junta will simply be setting the stage for the following devastating exodus,” the group stated in a press release.
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