Rohingya Muslims must go home: Bangladesh

UN opens key Rohingya fundraising conference

GENEVA: Bangladesh called on Myanmar on Monday to allow nearly one million Rohingya Muslim refugees to return home under safe conditions, saying that the burden had become “untenable” on its territory.

About 600,000 people have crossed the border since Aug 25 when Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts were met by a counter-offensive by the Myanmar army in Rakhine state which the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.

“This is an untenable situation,” Shameem Ahsan, Bangladesh’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told a UN pledging conference. “Despite claims to the contrary, violence in Rakhine state has not stopped. Thousands still enter on a daily basis.”

Vital humanitarian aid must continue, Ahsan said, adding: “It is of paramount importance that Myanmar delivers on its recent promises and works towards safe, dignified, voluntary return of its nationals back to their homes in Myanmar.”

Bangladesh’s interior minister was in Yangon on Monday for talks to find a “durable solution”, he said. But Myanmar continued to issue “propaganda projecting Rohingyas as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh”, Ahsan said, adding: “This blatant denial of the ethnic identity of Rohingyas remains a stumbling block.”

Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be stateless, although they trace their presence in the country back generations. Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, later told journalists that the two countries had begun talks on “repatriation”. Conducive conditions have to be “recreated” in Rakhine, he said.

“This must include a solution to the question of citizenship, or rather lack thereof for the Rohingya community,” Grandi said. Khaled al-Jarallah, deputy foreign minister of Kuwait, called on Myanmar authorities to “cease the practice of stripping the Rohingya minority of their right of citizenship, which as a result deprives them of the right to property and employment”.

Jordan’s Queen Rania visited Rohingya refugee camps on Monday and called for a stronger response from the international community to the plight of the Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh to escape “systematic persecution” in Myanmar.

“One has to ask, why is the plight of this Muslim minority group being ignored? Why has the systematic prosecution been allowed to play out for so long?” she asked after touring the camps.

The United Nations has appealed for $434 million to provide life-saving aid to 1.2 million people for six months. A total of $344 million has been raised so far, a final UN statement said.

“We need more money to keep pace with intensifying needs. This is not an isolated crisis, it is the latest round in a decades-long cycle of persecution, violence and displacement,” UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the talks.

An estimated 1,000-3,000 Rohingya still enter Bangladesh daily, William Lacy Swing, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said. He called them: “these most rejected and vulnerable people in the world.”

Joanne Liu, president of the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders, described them as “the walking dead”.  

Meanwhile, the UN opened a major fundraising conference on Monday aimed at securing some of the million dollars aid groups say is needed to care for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

More than 600,000 people from the Muslim minority group have fled violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state since August.

That has brought the total number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to an estimated 900,000, including those who fled before the latest surge in violence.

The pledging conference in Geneva, co-hosted by the European Union and Kuwait, is part of an effort to raise $434 million by February 2018.

A total of $100 million had been delivered or promised before the conference opened, and the EU pledged an addition 30 million euros on Monday.

“We are here today because, sadly, the needs are even greater than we can provide with our current resources,” the deputy chief of the World Food Programme, Elisabeth Rasmusson, told the conference.

“On behalf of the people we are trying to help, we must ask you for more.” The funds will benefit the 900,000 refugees as well as roughly 300,000 local people from Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area on the Myanmar border.

The local community, and Bangladesh’s government, have been broadly praised for the response to Rohingya refugee influx, notably for keeping the border open.

Rohingya refugees have headed for Bangladesh in huge numbers after militant attacks on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine state sparked a major army crackdown on the community likened to ethnic cleansing by the UN.

Rohingyas have been systematically deprived of basic rights over decades in majority Buddhist Myanmar.  In the latest crackdown, Myanmar’s security forces have fired indiscriminately on unarmed civilians, including children, and committed widespread sexual violence, according to UN investigators.