Myanmar team visits Cox’s Bazar for Rohingya repatriation project

Myanmar delegation is visiting camps this week to verify a few hundred potential returnees for the project.

A delegation from Myanmar is visiting Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh this week to verify a few hundred potential returnees for a pilot repatriation project.

A Bangladeshi official said on Wednesday it was unclear when the mainly Muslim refugees would be going home.

Nearly a million Rohingya are living in camps in Bangladesh in the border district of Cox’s Bazar, most having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.

Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner in Cox’s Bazar, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, told Reuters news agency there was a list of 1,140 Rohingya who are to be repatriated under the pilot project, of which 711 have had their cases cleared.

Cases for the remaining 429 on the list, including some newborns, were still being processed.

“We are ready” to send them back, Rahman said, adding he did not know when that could begin.

So far, Myanmar’s military government, which took power in a coup two years ago, has shown little inclination to take back Rohingya refugees.

China’s ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen hoped the first batch of displaced Rohingya would be repatriated soon while Beijing continued its role as mediator, the official Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency reported.

Crammed in tens of thousands of huts made of bamboo and thin plastic sheets, refugees’ living conditions in the camps are dangerous.

Two years ago, a massive blaze in the camp killed at least 15 people and destroyed more than 10,000 homes. Another fire earlier this month left 12,000 people without shelter.

Aside from longstanding problems such as the lack of employment and educational opportunities, the camps also suffer from surging crime.

Desperate to find somewhere better, many Rohingya have risked their lives making the hazardous sea voyage from Bangladesh to countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

According to the United Nations estimates, at least 348 Rohingya are thought to have died at sea last year.