UN: Rohingya Citizenship, Safety Need Addressing before Repatriation

Rasa - The UN refugee chief said more time is needed to prepare the return of Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh to Western Rakhine state in Myanmar.

News ID: 435981

Date: 25 January 2018 - 00:09

RNA - Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday that issues surrounding Rohingya citizenship and safety needed to be addressed before their repatriation, presstv reported.

"In order for the repatriation to be right, sustainable, actually viable, you need to really… address a number of issues that for the time being we have heard nothing about, including the citizenship issue, the rights of the Rohingya in Rakhine state, meaning freedom of movement, access to services, to livelihoods," media outlets quoted Grandi as saying.

The remarks came after Bangladesh postponed the gradual repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar, which was slated to begin Tuesday, amid concerns that the refugees could be coerced into leaving.

“We have not made the preparations required to send back people from tomorrow (January 23). A lot of preparation is still needed,” Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Abul Kalam said on Monday.

Meanwhile, tensions have mounted at refugee camps in Southeastern Bangladesh where authorities have been trying to draw up a list of Rohingya Muslims who could be sent back to Myanmar.

Hundreds of Rohingya have taken part in protests against repatriation in recent days. Local authorities in Cox's Bazar on Monday prevented hundreds of them from holding a rally at one large camp.

Attackers on Monday killed a Rohingya representative in a camp, the second such death in three days.

Sources said the dead man was a camp leader at Balukhali camp on the border with Myanmar. District police chief Iqbal Hossain said Yusuf Ali, 60, was stabbed to death.

Mohammad Yusuf, a leader in neighboring Thaingkhali camp, was shot dead last Friday. The Dhaka Tribune described the victim as a pro-repatriation leader.

His wife Jamila Khatun, 35, said some 20 armed and masked men had stormed their home and shot her husband in the head and the mouth.

Local media and a Rohingya leader have linked the killings to fears of being sent back. Police have rejected any such connection.

Bangladesh and Myanmar last week finalized an agreement that would facilitate the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees over the next two years.

The refugees refuse to go back unless their safety can be guaranteed and Myanmar heeds their demands for citizenship and inclusion in a list of recognized ethnic minorities.

The UN says nearly 680,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine for Bangladesh since violence intensified last August.

Since August 25, 2017, Myanmar's troops have been committing killings and rapes, making arbitrary arrests, and carrying out mass arson attacks to destroy houses in Rakhine.

Only in its first month, the military clampdown killed some 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including more than 700 children, according to the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

847/940