Myanmar Seeking to Repatriate Rohingya Refugees From Bangladesh

Facts

• Officials from Myanmar traveled to Bangladesh on Tuesday to meet with Rohingya refugee families and discuss their repatriation, building upon a China-brokered pilot plan agreed in April between the two countries to return roughly 3K refugees by December.¹
• Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mizanur Rahman said that this trip comes as part of a verification process focused on the extended family members of those selected earlier for repatriation, including newborn children and wives of newlyweds.²
• The 32-man Myanmar delegation is the third to visit Bangladesh this year following previous rounds in March and May. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government and a delegation of Rohingya visited Rakhine in May to inspect the situation there.³
• According to a Bangladeshi government official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, the Rohingya are not prepared to return to Myanmar until conditions such as resettlement in their own land and the assurance of citizenship rights are met.⁴
• Roughly 1M stateless Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled Myanmar amid a military crackdown that is currently subject to a UN genocide probe, live in over-crowded and under-resourced camps in Bangladesh.⁵
• In June this year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews called for Bangladesh to 'immediately suspend the repatriation pilot program,' arguing that the return of Rohingya refugees would expose them to 'gross human rights violations' and 'future atrocity crimes.'⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²EFE Noticias, ³Dhaka Tribune, ⁴Yahoo News, ⁵Myanmar Now and ⁶UN News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The Daily Star. The quality of life within camps inhabited by Rohingya in Bangladesh is only deteriorating, and barely keeping afloat thanks to humanitarian aid. The slow processing of data provided by Bangladesh to the Myanmar authorities implies that there is little real desire to see Rohingya people return to their homeland. More pressure must be applied to Myanmar to oversee and ensure safe and peaceful repatriation.
• Narrative B, as provided by The National. Bangladesh's pilot plan ignores a host of human rights concerns surrounding the potential return of Rohingyas to Myanmar. Bangladesh is well aware of the potential consequences of blindly returning the persecuted Muslim community to the hands of a discriminatory military junta. Bangladesh must rethink its agreement with Myanmar, and provide a real opportunity for its refugees to live a normal life.