Myanmar team in Bangladesh for Rohingya return plan

Myanmar officials were meeting with Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar on Wednesday in what Bangladeshi authorities said was the revival of a long-stalled effort to return the stateless minority to their homeland.

Bangladesh is home to around a million Rohingyas, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar now subject to a UN genocide investigation.

Both countries signed an agreement to return them later that year but little progress has been made, leaving the refugees to languish in squalid relief camps.

Shamsud Douza, Bangladesh’s deputy refugee commissioner, told AFP that a 17-member team led by a senior official in Myanmar’s immigration ministry arrived in the border town of Teknaf on Wednesday morning.

More than 700 Rohingyas will be interviewed by the delegation to assess the suitability of their return to Myanmar, an official from the commission said.

It was “the first time since 2017 a Myanmar team has arrived to interview in person the Rohingyas for repatriation,” a senior foreign ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“We expect repatriation will start before the monsoon,” he said, referring to the rains that inundate the region every June. The official insisted that no Rohingya would be returned against their will.

A spokesman for Myanmar’s junta confirmed the visit to AFP.