Bangladesh is working to finalise a draft on the physical arrangement to begin the repatriation of Rohingyas living in Cox’s Bazar district through an effective and efficient way.
The National Taskforce on Implementation of Strategy on Myanmar Refugees and Undocumented Myanmar Nationals with an accompanying Inter-Ministerial Meeting is scheduled to be held here on Thursday which will also discuss the repatriation issues, an official said.
The meetings will discuss in details to finalise the draft of the Physical Arrangement.
Around 1 million Rohingyas are now living in Bangladesh including 655000 new arrivals sinceAugust 25, officials said.
Bangladesh is expected to handover the first list of 100,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in the upcoming joint working group (JWG) meeting to be held in Myanmar capital.
The physical arrangement will have the detailed guideline for repatriation and rehabilitation of Rohingyas who fled Myanmar and took shelter in Bangladesh amid persecution which the UN, US and other bodies termed “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
As per the agreement signed on November 23, Myanmar has agreed to take necessary measures to halt the outflow of its residents to Bangladesh, to restore normalcy in Northern Rakhine and to encourage those who had left Myanmar to return voluntarily and safely to their own households and original places of residence or to a safe and secure place nearest to it of their choice.
Under the agreement, Myanmar will take back those people, who entered Bangladesh after October 9 last year and August 25 this year.
Repatriation of those who took shelter in Bangladesh before October 9 last year would also be considered separately after conclusion of the present arrangement, the minister told journalists.
Officials said the government has prepared a database containing the names of 850,000 Rohingyas who took shelter in Bangladesh.
In the first phase, Dhaka will give Myanmar with a list of 100,000 displaced Rohingyas.
Meanwhile, Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi avoided discussing reports of Rohingya women and girls being raped by Myanmar troops and police when she met a senior UN official, according to an internal memo seen by the Guardian.
Pramila Patten, the special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, travelled to the country for a four-day visit in mid-December to raise the crisis with government officials.
But she said, Aung San Suu Kyi, a state counsellor in the Myanmar government, refused to engage in “any substantive discussion” of reports that soldiers, border guard police and Rakhine Buddhist militias carried out “widespread and systematic” sexual violence in northern Rakhine state.
