Dhaka expresses disappointment to UN over lengthy Rohingya presence

 

The government has expressed disappointment to the United Nations about the lengthy presence of more than a million Rohingya people of Myanmar as the refugee crisis poses multiple problems with regional security implications for Bangladesh.

In a meeting with a top UN official Tuesday night, foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen ‘expressed disappointment’ as ‘in the fifth year of the crisis, Bangladesh is still grappling with multiple challenges of hosting more than a million forcibly-displaced Myanmar nationals,’ according to a press release.

The prolonged presence of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh ‘is creating security problems such as human and drug trafficking with ramifications across the region,’ he said in a virtual meeting with Noeleen Heyzer, the UN secretary general’s newly-appointed special envoy on Myanmar. 

The foreign secretary requested the envoy to play an effective role towards a durable solution to the Rohingya crisis.

Outlining Bangladesh’s priority, which is immediate repatriation of the Rohingyas to their homeland Myanmar, Momen stressed that the envoy should work towards creating conducive conditions in Myanmar for the return of the Rohingyas with safety and security.

The envoy assured that the Rohingya issue would remain high on her agenda.

Noeleen Heyzer succeeded Christine Schraner Burgener as the UN secretary general’s special envoy on Myanmar in October 2021.

Some 8,60,000 Rohingyas, mostly women, children and elderly people, entered Bangladesh fleeing unbridled murder, arson and rape during ‘security operations’ by Myanmar military in Rakhine in 2017, beginning from August 25 that year, according to the UN agencies.

The United Nations denounced the Myanmar military operations as ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Not a single Rohingya returned to Myanmar since the signing of instruments with the country in December, 2017.

The latest Rohingya influx took the number of undocumented Myanmar nationals and registered refugees in Bangladesh to over 1.1 million over the years, according to estimates by UN agencies and the Bangladesh foreign ministry.