Bangladesh urges UNHCR to take effective steps to repatriate refugees

Chittagong, Bangladesh: Dr Abdur Razzaque, the Food and Disaster Management Minister of Bangladesh urged the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to take effective steps to repatriate the Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh on November 20, according to official statement.

“He made the call when UNHCR assistant high commissioner Janet Lim met him at the Secretariat.”

Razzaque also said that the Rohingyas are an extra burden for densely populated Bangladesh. “Although Bangladesh is a poor country, it has been continuing its assistance to the Rohingyas, considering the humanitarian ground.”

Janet Lim requested the Bangladesh government to take steps to ensure nutrition of Rohingyas who are living in shelter centres in Bangladesh.

Besides, Bangladesh - as a principled position, had never pursued ‘forced repatriation’ of refugees- Dipu Moni the foreign ministry said in a press released.

Bangladesh is cooperating with the UNHCR to support the voluntary repatriation of the Rohingya refugees through diplomatic negotiations with Burma, Dipo Moni said.

The foreign Minister also said that at around 9,000 of the refugees were earlier cleared by the Burma government in 2005.

The repatriation of Rohingya to Burma should remain strictly voluntary, UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner Janet Lim stated.

According to a group of refugees, “We will go back to our motherland if the Burmese authorities give us citizenship with Rohingya ethnicity and equal rights as other ethnics groups.”

A politician on condition of anonymity said that if the Burmese authorities do not grant full citizenship with ethnicity and equal rights to the Rohingya refugees, the refugees will never go back to Burma.

The politician also said, “We fled to Bangladesh from Burma because of persecution and human rights abuses by the military regime. We will not jump again into the same persecution and human rights abuses by the military regime. We would rather die in Bangladesh or elsewhere.”