HRW News, (Bangkok) :
Bangladesh’s decision on January 22, 2018, to delay the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Burma should be followed by suspending the bilateral plan, which threatens the refugees’ security and well-being, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 16, Burma and Bangladesh announced an agreement that provides additional details on a plan that would repatriate over 770,000 mostly Rohingya Muslim refugees who left Burma’s Rakhine State since October 2016. The majority fled a Burmese military campaign of ethnic cleansing that began in late August. Since January 19, hundreds of Rohingya refugees in Bangladeshi camps have protested against plans to begin repatriations.
“Rohingya refugees shouldn’t be returned to camps guarded by the very same Burmese forces who forced them to flee massacres and gang rapes, and torched villages,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The repatriation plan appears to be a public relations ploy to hide the fact that Burma has not taken measures to ensure safe and sustainable returns.”
Burmese authorities have shown no ability to ensure the safe, dignified, and voluntary return of Rohingya refugees as provided by international standards, Human Rights Watch said. The plan, agreed in November 2017, would move returnees from processing centers to a hastily built “transit camp” before possible return to their home areas, where hundreds of villages have been burned to the ground. Internally displaced Rohingya moved in the past to such “temporary” camps have lacked enough aid and have been unable to move freely while being denied other basic rights.
On January 22, Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and rehabilitation commissioner, said that repatriation had been postponed because, “The list of people to be sent back is yet to be prepared, their verification and setting up of transit camps is remaining.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters on January 16: “The worst would be to move these people from camps in Bangladesh to camps in Myanmar [Burma], keeping an artificial situation for a long time and not allowing for them to regain their normal lives.”
The plan announced by Burma and Bangladesh would repatriate over 770,000 Rohingya and several hundred Hindu refugees. According to media reports and statements, the plan includes target numbers and timeframes for return, as well as the establishment of processing centers in Bangladesh and Burma. The governments agreed to repatriate at least 300 refugees per day, five days per week. It has been widely reported that the process is expected to run for the next two years. Putting quotas and deadlines on refugee returns reinforces the risk of forced refugee return.
Burmese state media reported on January 15 that three camps would be created in Maungdaw Township in Rakhine State to process and house returning refugees. Two camps in Taung Pyo Letwe and Nga Khu Ya would be used to process refugees, while a camp in Hla Po Khaung would accommodate returning refugees. State media reported that: “The 124-acre Hla Po Khaung will accommodate about 30,000 people in its 625 buildings. Forty buildings will be completed by 25 January and 100 by 31 January. [E]ach building can accommodate 80 persons.” Burmese state media has published photos of wooden buildings in Hla Po Khaung with high, barbed wire perimeter fences.
