BSS-54 Myanmar officials visit Rohingya camps after Dhaka talks

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ZCZC

BSS-54

ROHINGYA-REPATRIATION-VISIT

Myanmar officials visit Rohingya camps after Dhaka talks

COX’S BAZAR, Oct 31, 2018 (BSS) – Myanmar officials today visited crammed
Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar visibly in their effort to start a process to
take back tens of thousands of these forcibly displaced people, a day after
Naypyidaw agreed to begin their repatriation by mid November.

Witnesses said 12 Myanmar officials came to Cox’s Bazar and met the
Rohingya community leaders at their largest makeshift camp at Kutupalang
after reaching the deal with Bangladesh authorities in Dhaka on the
repatriation schedule in line with an earlier agreed modality.

Bangladeshi officials said they so far provided Myanmar a list of over
32,000 Rohingyas in two phases and furnished the latest list of 24,000 in
yesterday’s third Joint Working Group meeting while Myanmar said they by now
verified 5,000 of them.

Bangladeshi and Myanmar officials today separately said Naypyidaw would
return initially 2,200 in the first batch when the repatriation would begin
in two weeks.

“We are looking forward to starting the repatriation by mid-November,”
Bangladesh’s foreign secretary Shahidul Haque told newsmen yesterday after
the talks in Dhaka when

Myanmar’s permanent secretary of foreign affairs Myint Thu said both sides
agreed to a “very concrete” plan to start the process next month.

“We have shown our political will, flexibility and accommodation in order
to commence the repatriation at the earliest possible date,” Thu told
reporters.

Myanmar earlier announced a large-scale repatriation plan in November 2017
but Dhaka alleged the country took little steps to keep their promise.

A Bangladeshi official familiar with the meeting in Cox’s Bazar said the
Myanmar delegation handed the Rohingyas over a pamphlet encouraging them to
accept verification cards called NVC saying it would guarantee their “socio-
economic development” once they returned their homeland in Rakhine state.

According to the pamphlets the NVCs would pave ways for them to be “Myanmar
citizens” while the Rohingya leaders raised some demands to Myanmar officials
for ensuring their safety and rights on return to their own country.

The Myanmar foreign secretary yesterday, however, told journalists that his
government put in place several measures to ensure a secured environment for
Rohingyas on their return.

More than 700,000 Rohingyas crossed into Bangladesh from Rakhine since
August last year when Myanmar launched there a brutal military crackdown,
dubbed by UN as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” by
international rights watchdogs, sparking a global uproar.

UN investigators said Myanmar’s top military officials should be prosecuted
for genocide but the country has rejected the calls, insisting it was
defending itself against armed fighters.

Myanmar, however, said it built camps near the border to receive them.

Bangladesh, which had been extending refuge to another 300,000 Rohingyas
ahead of the fresh exodus since last year, demanded mounting UN and global
pressures on Myanmar for their safe and dignified return and security once
they returned home.

BSS/CORR/TA/AR/ 2034 hrs