Bangladesh hands list of another 50000 Rohingyas to Myanmar

Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on Tuesday said Bangladesh has handed over a fresh list of 50,000 forcibly displaced Rohingyas to the Myanmar authority for verification to repatriate them in Rakhine state, their land of origin.

“We have expedited the process of listing Rohingyas for repatriation,” he told newsmen at foreign ministry in the capital.

Earlier in the day, South East Asia wing director general of the ministry M Delwar Hossain handed over the fresh list to Myanmar ambassador in Bangladesh U Lwin Oo.

The foreign minister said, apart from today’s list, Bangladesh had earlier handed over names of around 55,000 Rohingyas to the Myanmar authority for verification.

About the recently formed tripartite joint working group comprising Bangladesh, China and Myanmar to expedite the Rohingya repatriation process, he said, the first meeting of the group will be held soon. “The process is ongoing (to organise the meeting).”

On the sidelines of the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar had agreed to form the tripartite joint working mechanism to observe repatriation efforts, on the ground, of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas to Rakhine.

Currently, Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar district. Most of them arrived since 25 August 2017 after a military crackdown by Myanmar termed as “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN.