DHAKA has urged again Myanmar to respect the human rights of Rohingyas and create friendly environment for their return to Rakhine State. In the 74th UNGA in UN headquarters, Dhaka has also repeatedly asked the regional leaders to create pressure on Myanmar for retaining the citizenship of the world’s most persecuted minority community Rohingya, who fled 2017 state-sponsored ethnic cleaning and genocide. Despite two times effort to initiate repatriation, the Rohingya people refused to go to their homeland unless their rights and citizenships are guaranteed by Myanmar government. Presence of huge number of Rohingyas has already created an adverse impact on the host country’s society, economy and environment, and some of them also emerge as the security threat.
Bangladesh’s economy is burdened with an estimated US$ 1.21 billion a year for supporting the Rohingyas and the cost may go up with their population growth, inflation, and decline in foreign funding. The refugees are providing cheap labour and involved in small businesses in Cox’s Bazar that are driving wages down and shrinking job opportunities for the locals. The Rohingya crisis is now seemed as a fiscal burden on Bangladesh. There are more problems: Myanmar’s constant denial of international human rights principles and UN Security Council’s failure to take concrete actions against the Myanmar military’s atrocities, who are mainly responsible for genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Without a strong UN role along with India and China’s active mediation, there is a little chance of repatriation of the Rohingyas. The burden of Rohingya people on Bangladesh may trigger other internal troubles also. We ask the government to find out every possible way to create pressure on Myanmar to get rid of the problem as early as possible. Apart from the UN, the ASEAN and OIC could take effective measures to put meaningful pressure on Myanmar to ensure a favourable environment so that Rohingyas feel secure to return to their ancestral land. But first of all, it will need prompt and efficient diplomatic move of Dhaka.
