Mounting confusion over forced Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar

There is growing confusion over whether the planned forced repatriation of Rohingya Muslims back to Myanmar will begin on Thursday as planned.

Bangladesh began preparations to send back an initial group of Rohingya to Myanmar in line with a bilateral plan agreed by the two governments in October.

The move has been opposed by the United Nations’ refugee agency and aid groups who fear for the safety of the ethnic minority.

The Rohingya themselves have also said they are terrified of returning to the Buddhist-majority country. Some have gone into hiding.

“It is not happening tomorrow as nobody wants to go back,” Reuters news agency quoted one anonymous source as saying.

Bangladesh has deployed the army to the refugee camps ahead of the expulsion in a move Human Rights Watch said underlined the refugees’ fear of return.

“The Bangladesh government will be stunned to see how quickly interntional opinion turns against it if it starts sending unwilling Rohingya refugees back into harm’s way in Myanmar,” Bill Frelick, the group’s refugee rights director, said in a statement.

“That Dhaka deployed its army into the camps is a red flag that this terrified community is not willing to return.” 

Reuters said its sources were directly involved in the repatriation and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. An official announcement from the Bangladesh government confirming the delay was likely to come on Thursday, they said.

The Associated Press reported Refugees, Repatriation and Rehabilitation Commissioner Abul Kalam saying on Wednesday that 30 refugee families would be handed over to Myanmar at the Ghumdhum border point near Cox’s Bazar, where the Rohingya have been living in refugee camps.

But later in the day, Kalam said Bangladesh had discussed the situation with the UN’s refugee agency, which submitted a report based on discussions with those on a list to return.

Details of the report were not shared, but Kalam said they wanted to be “hopeful” in beginning the relocation on Thursday.

“We hope we will be able to confirm tomorrow morning [Thursday] how many we are taking,” he said, according to AP.

Kalam said about 2,260 refugees from 485 families were expected to be sent back in an initial group. Myanmar officials said recently they were ready to receive about 150 refugees each day.

More than 700,000 Rohingya fled a brutal army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state last year. The Rohingya refugees say soldiers and local Buddhists massacred families, burned hundreds of villages, and carried out mass gang rape.

UN-mandated investigators have accused the Myanmar army of ethnic cleansing and said last month a “continuing genocide” was taking place in the country.

Myanmar denies the allegations, saying security forces were battling “terrorists”.

Attacks by Rohingya rebels calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army preceded the crackdown.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Bangladesh on Tuesday to halt the forced repatriation, warning lives would be put at “serious risk” if it went ahead.

US Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday expressed the Trump administration’s strongest condemnation yet of Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya, telling leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Singapore that “persecution” by the Myanmar army was “without excuse”.

Suu Kyi, responding to Pence, said people had different points of view.

“In a way, we can say that we understand our country better than any other country does and I’m sure you will say the same of yours, that you understand your country better than anybody else,” she added.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies