Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali has requested the UNHCR to ask Myanmar for taking meaningful steps to ensure return of all Myanmar nationals staying in Bangladesh to their homeland in Rakhine State.
“Constant presence of huge number of Myanmar Nationals in Cox’s Bazar district has created a number of adverse effects on socio-economic, political, demographic, environmental, and humanitarian and security in Cox’s Bazar and a its adjacent districts,” he said.
The Foreign Minister said this during a meeting with the visiting United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the capital on Saturday.
Grandi is currently visiting Bangladesh and will have a mission to Cox’s Bazar today to meet Myanmar refugees, a foreign ministry statement said.
During the meeting, Ali apprised the UN Refugee Agency Chief of the measures taken by the government to provide humanitarian assistances to Myanmar refugees and the undocumented Myanmar nationals.
As many as 236,599 Rakhine Muslims had been repatriated till 2005 in Bangladesh, he told Grandi and thanked the UNHCR for providing valuable support throughout the process of repatriation of this huge number of Myanmar nationals.
The minister expressed concern over unilateral halt of the repatriation process by the Myanmar government since 2005 even though 10,820 refugees had been cleared by both countries through verification process.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees commended Bangladesh government for being benevolent to host a large number of Myanmar nationals for long time as well as for providing the humanitarian assistances to them.
He underscored that the root cause of the instability in Rakhine State lies in the expropriation of citizenship of the Rakhine Muslims.
Ali thanked the High Commissioner for undertaking the visit to Bangladesh and assured him of all sort of cooperation during his mission to Cox’s Bazar.
