Bangladesh has counted more than 1 million Rohingya refugees living in camps near its border with Burma, according to the official in charge of the refugee registration project, as preparations are underway to bring them home.
The Bangladeshi army began recording biometric data for refugees last year after fleeing large numbers of Burma, where the Muslim minority faced decades of persecution.
The purpose of the registration process is partly to help bring refugees back to their homes – a controversial issue, most of them insisting they do not want to return.
Bangladesh says it wants to start sending them back next week and reached an initial deal with Burma to complete the process within two years.
“So far, we have registered 1,004,742 Rohingyas, who have been given biometric registration cards,” said Brigadier General Sayed Rahman, who is in charge of the registration project.
He said thousands of others had not yet been registered.
The figures are higher than the UN estimate of 962,000 Rohingya in southeast Bangladesh near the border with Burma.
The figure includes 655,000 refugees estimated by the United Nations to have arrived in Bangladesh after 25 August 2017 when the Burmese army launched a military operation in Rakhine state in response to rebel attacks from the Rohingya.
MSF said 6,700 Rohingyas were killed in the first month of the operation.
Refugees in Bangladesh reported stories of alleged mass rape and deliberate burning of houses by soldiers and the Buddhist majority in Rakhine.
A number of refugees have been living in Bangladesh for several years, but their return agreement includes only those who arrived after October 2016.
The parties said on Tuesday they agreed to complete the process within two years, the first concrete timetable for the return of refugees.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterich expressed concern over the deal, saying “we think it is very important that the UN refugee agency be involved in the process to ensure that it complies with international standards.”
Guterich said it was necessary for the return to be voluntary and to allow the Rohinga to return to their original homes, not to camps.
Human rights groups also expressed concern about the pace of the operation, especially as the Rohingya continued to flee Rakhine.
“While the memories of rape, murder and torture are still in the minds of the Rohingya refugees, their plans to return to Burma are still worrying,” said James Gomez, Amnesty International’s regional director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
“The confusion and exile practiced by the Myanmar authorities do not give cause for hope that the Rohingyas’ return rights will be protected, or that the reasons for their escape basically no longer exist,” he said.
