First group of refugees to be sent back to
Myanmar next week but critics say details are unclear
By Michael Safi
Concerns are growing among United Nations
agencies and humanitarian groups over an agreement between the Bangladesh and
Myanmar governments to repatriate several hundred thousand Rohingya refugees
within two years.
Bangladesh state media reported on Wednesday
that the first batch of Rohingya would be sent back to Myanmar next week.
Rights groups said it remained unclear whether refugees would be forced to
return against their will.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres,
said the repatriation deal finalised in the Myanmar capital, Naypyidaw, on
Tuesday also needed to clarify whether Rohingya would be permitted to return to
their homes or live in specially built camps.
“The worst would be to move these people from
camps in Bangladesh to camps in Myanmar,” Guterres said at a press conference
at the UN headquarters in New York.
The deal included no role for the UN refugee
agency, he added, making it difficult to “guarantee that the operation abides
by international standards”.
About 750,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh
after army crackdowns in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state starting in October
2016 and August last year. The Muslim minority have faced decades of systemic
oppression in Myanmar; the US government has described the most recent violence
as ethnic cleansing.
Paul Ronalds, the chief executive of Save the
Children Australia, said Tuesday’s agreement was “still very sketchy” and did
not address the conditions the Rohingya would face on their return.
“If the Rohingya are to return to Myanmar, it
is critical for them to feel assured that their protection will be assured and
they will not be subject to the oppression and violence they lived under for
decades,” he said.
Ronalds said the “minimum conditions” for any
deal needed to include the provision of basic rights to the Rohingya such as
citizenship, freedom of movement and unimpeded access to jobs.
Under Tuesday’s agreement, the refugees will
be moved from five camps near the Bangladesh border to two reception centres on
the Myanmar side. From there they will be taken to temporary accommodation at a
124-acre camp near Maungdaw township.
More than 100,000 people are living in camps
for internally displaced people in Myanmar, many in conditions UN agencies have
described as appalling.
Those who have been moved out of the camps
have been resettled in places “where they will have job opportunities”, the
country’s minister for social welfare, Win Myat Aye, has said.
Amnesty International described plans to
return the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as “alarmingly premature”. “The
Rohingya have an absolute right to return to and reside in Myanmar but there
must be no rush to return people to a system of apartheid. Any forcible returns
would be a violation of international law,” said James Gomez, a regional
director for the organisation.
Myanmar officials blame the most recent surge
in violence on a series of attacks on 25 August by Rohingya militants on
security posts in Rakhine state, a remote, underdeveloped region to which
humanitarian workers and journalists are usually denied entry.
The top UN official responsible for human
rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, who was recently banned from the country, said
on Wednesday she would continue her work from Thailand and Cox’s Bazaar in
southern Bangladesh, where the majority of Rohingya are living in aid camps.
“By not giving me access to Myanmar and by
refusing to cooperate with the mandate, my task is made that much more difficult,
but I will continue to obtain first-hand accounts from victims and witnesses of
human rights violations by all means possible,” she said.