Continue pressure on Myanmar to take back Rohingya: Hasina

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has reiterated her call to the international community to continue pressure on Myanmar to take back its nationals from Bangladesh.She made the call when WHO-SEARO regional director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh met her at her official residence in Dhaka yesterday.Prime minister’s press secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters after the meeting.The prime minister informed the WHO regional director that Bangladesh has given shelter to Rohingya refugees on humanitarian grounds.She said the Bangladesh government has completed the biometric registration of the Myanmar’s displaced nationals who have entered Bangladesh facing atrocities unleashed by the Myanmar forces in Rakhine state.Hasina said the government has given identity cards to Rohingya so that they could be identified easily and the Myanmar government could take them back.She said some 28,000 people are working round the clock to manage more than 1,000,000 Rohingya.Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh highly appreciated Bangladesh government’s move over the Rohingya issue.“The Bangladesh government is doing a great job,” she said.She also mentioned that WHO will help Bangladesh provide immunisation and medical services to the Rohingya.Expressing her concern over the health condition, sanitation and waterborne diseases of the Rohingya in the upcoming monsoon, Dr Khetrapal Singh said it would be a challenging job to tackle those and urged the government to continue its immunisation activities.She said the huge number of Rohingya refugees, which is more than the total population of Bhutan, is the main problem to manage. “This is a gigantic job,” she added.Hasina said her government is in touch with five neighbouring countries bordering with Myanmar, including Thailand, China and India, on the issue of Rohingya crisis.Referring to establishment of community clinics across Bangladesh, she said such initiative was a vision of Bangabandhu to reach healthcare services at the doorsteps of rural people.Dr Khetrapal Singh highly appreciated the prime minister for her dynamic leadership as well as for Bangladesh’s development, particularly on flood control, saying the country is an example in the world on the issue. She also lauded Bangladesh’s achievement on health and sanitation and said, “Its achievement in reducing child mortality and maternal mortality rate is commended globally.”At the meeting, the issue of autism was also discussed when WHO regional director praised prime minister’s daughter Saima Wazed Hossain for her role in creating awareness on autism globally.The WHO regional director said that now people of South Asia know about the autism and are aware about it.Saima Wazed Hossain, chairperson, Bangladesh National Advisory Committee for Autism and Neuro Developmental Disorders and also member of the WHO’s expert advisory panel on mental health, was present during the meeting.