Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh received good news: Bangladeshi authorities have postponed plans to begin sending them back to Myanmar. The plans had been made to return the refugees—a process called “repatriation”—even though no one volunteered to go.
The Muslim Rohingya are a people without a country. Myanmar doesn’t recognize them as citizens. It denies them jobs, education, and freedom to move around the country. More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled persecution in Bangladesh. (See “Rohingya Persecution in Myanmar.”)
United Nations officials and international aid agencies are praising Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for upholding a commitment not to force repatriation, though she has repeatedly described the toll on Bangladesh of hosting Rohingya refugees.
Residents of the Bangladesh Cox’s Bazar district often complain that refugees are willing to work illegally for lower wages. In addition, thousands of acres of national forests usually roamed by wild elephants have been taken over by the Rohingya’s cramped and unsanitary camps.
Hasina’s decision not to force the refugees’ return probably won’t hurt her bid to win a third term in December elections. Pinak Chakravarty, India’s former ambassador to Bangladesh, says, “The people of Bangladesh are sympathetic to the plight of the Rohingya. Apart from the fact that they’re refugees, they’re fellow Muslims.”
Bangladesh’s refugee commission had planned to begin a voluntary repatriation process to Myanmar by escorting about 150 refugees across the border last Thursday—despite calls by human rights groups to wait until the Rohingya’s safety in Myanmar could be assured.
Fearful of returning to Myanmar, some people on the repatriation list left their shanties and disappeared. After a demonstration involving about 1,000 Rohingya broke out at one camp, Refugee Commissioner Abul Kalam announced plans had been abandoned because no refugees were willing to return. Tensions have eased in the camps as it became clear that refugees were unlikely to be sent back.
(Rohingya refugee Johara, with four of her five children, speaks to reporters in Unchiprang refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. AP Photo)
