Myanmar officials to visit Bangladesh over Rohingya repatriation

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - A Myanmar delegation is expected to visit Rohingya refugees living on the southeast coast of Bangladesh for the third time aiming to begin their repatriation in the next three months, a Bangladeshi official told Anadolu.

A high-level Bangladeshi delegation is in Myanmar to attend Chinese-mediated talks to begin a pending pilot repatriation program.

A list of over 7,000 Rohingya has been prepared but, initially, 3,000 Rohingya would be sent to Myanmar based on the program, Miah Md. Mainul Kabir, who heads the Myanmar desk at the Foreign Ministry, told Anadolu.

"A Myanmar delegation will visit Bangladesh further to strengthen the repatriation process,” he added.

There was no immediate comment from Myanmar over the latest visit by Bangladeshi officials.

Nur Hashem, a Rohingya leader who met and held talks with the visiting Myanmar team last time, told Anadolu that they want to return to the same village they had been living in for generations with citizenship rights.

“The Myanmar junta must scrap the list of Myanmar Muslims as extremists to ensure the safety and security of the Rohingya people after their repatriation,” he said.

Earlier in March and May this year two Myanmar delegations visited Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar and a Rohingya delegation along with Bangladeshi officials visited Rakhine state later under the pilot program but made no progress immediately.

More than 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims forcibly displaced from Myanmar live in 33 congested refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, with another 30,000 relocated to Bhasan Char, an island in the Bay of Bengal.