Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said yesterday more international pressure was needed on Myanmar to take back Muslim Rohingya refugees.
“The international community needs to put more pressure on Myanmar so that they take back their own people and ensure their security,” she told an audience in London.
“Myanmar says they are ready to take back the Rohingya, but they are not taking the initiative.”
UN officials say nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh from Rakhine to escape a military crackdown since August, amid reports of murder, rape and arson by Myanmar troops and Buddhist vigilantes in actions which the United Nations has likened to “ethnic cleansing”.
Myanmar has denied nearly all allegations, saying it has been waging a legitimate counter-insurgency operation.
Hasina said Bangladesh had submitted the names of 8,000 Rohingya families for repatriation to Myanmar, but that Myanmar had refused to take them back.
She disputed a claim by Myanmar that it had repatriated five members of a Rohingya family from Bangladesh, describing them as having been living in the no man’s land between the two countries.
“Maybe (Myanmar) wants to show the world they are taking them back. It’s a good sign. If they want, then why only 1 family? We have already submitted the names of 8,000 (Rohingya) families, but they’ve not taken them back,” she said.
Hasina confirmed a plan to move 100,000 Rohingya refugees to a uninhabited low-lying island in the Bay of Bengal and dismissed fears that it would be put them at the mercy of floods.
“Bangladesh can always be flooding and it does. The camps are very unhealthy. We have prepared a better place for them to live, with houses and shelters where they can earn a living. Where they are living now, the monsoon season is coming up, there can be land erosions, accidents are taking place,” she said.
Hasina was delivering her speech in an event titled ‘Bangladesh’s Development Story: Policies, Progresses and Prospects’ at Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London as the keynote speaker.
She said although Bangladesh has achieved successes in various sectors, this does not mean that there is no challenge. “We face the challenge of climate change although we’re the least polluter,” she said adding that the rise in sea level will induce displacement of millions in the country, according to a Bangladesh news agency UNB.
“It’s a shared responsibility of the global community to protect our planet, our biodiversity and our climate,” the Bangladesh prime minister said, adding that Bangladesh is in the process of developing ‘Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100’ to mitigate and manage the climate change impacts.
About terrorism and militancy which of late has turned into a global threat, the prime minister said Bangladesh is following a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy against the menaces.
u201cMyanmar says they are ready to take back the Rohingya, but they are not taking the initiativeu201d
