Rohingya say they will not return to Myanmar to be stuck in camps, want their land back
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Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi officials returning to Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh on May 5 after visiting Myanmar's Rakhine state.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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DHAKA - Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh said on Saturday they would not return to Myanmar to “be confined in camps” after making a visit to the country as part of efforts to encourage their voluntary repatriation.
Nearly one million Rohingya Muslims are living in squalid camps in the Bangladesh border district of Cox’s Bazar.
Most have been there after fleeing a military-led crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017 and had not returned until now, although Bangladeshi officials have made several trips to Myanmar as they seek to repatriate the refugees.
Twenty Rohingya Muslim refugees and seven Bangladeshi officials visited Maungdaw Township and nearby villages in Rakhine state on Friday to see the arrangements for resettlement.
The Rohingya have questioned the preparations for repatriation and said they will go back on a permanent basis only if their security is guaranteed and they will be granted citizenship.
“We don’t want to be confined in camps. We want to get back our land, and we will build our own houses there,” Mr Oli Hossain, who was among the refugees who visited Rakhine state, told Reuters by phone.
“We’ll return only with citizenship and all our rights,” said the 36-year-old Mr Hossain, a father of six.
Myanmar is offering the Rohingya national verification cards (NVC), which Rohingya refugees regard as inadequate.
“Myanmar is our birthplace and we are citizens of Myanmar and will go back with citizenship,” said refugee Abu Sufian, 35, a father of three.
“We’ll never accept NVC. This will effectively identify Rohingya as ‘foreigners’,” he told Reuters, adding that the Myanmar authorities “even changed the name” of his village in Rakhine.
Mr Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner in Cox’s Bazar, said repatriation was the only solution.
“We want nothing but a safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable repatriation,” he told Reuters.
He also said a team from Myanmar would come to Bangladesh within a week as a follow-up to build confidence among the Rohingya.
A Myanmar junta spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment.
Myanmar’s military had until recently shown little inclination to take back any Rohingya, who have for years been regarded as foreign interlopers in Myanmar and denied citizenship and subjected to abuse.
A Myanmar delegation, however, visited the camps in March
A Bangladeshi official said the project would involve about 1,100 refugees but no date had been set. Attempts to get repatriation going in 2018 and 2019 failed as the refugees, fearing violence, refused to go back.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said every refugee had “an inalienable right” to return to their home country, but that returns also had to be voluntary.
“UNHCR maintains that dialogue with the Rohingya refugees is a must to make an informed decision,” it said in a statement.
“Visits are an important part of voluntary refugee returns, providing a chance for people to observe conditions in their home country first-hand ahead of return and contributing to the making of an informed decision on return,” it added. REUTERS
