Myanmar is finalizing a plan to return the first batch of Muslim Rohingyas who fled the conflict in Rakhine state despite growing uncertainty about the plan between refugees and the United Nations, state media said on Saturday.
According to the New Global Light of Myanmar, Rakhine State Prime Minister Ni Bo insisted on finishing finishing the buildings, medical centers and public health infrastructure during his visit to the returnee reception camps in the state on Friday.
The newspaper published a photograph of his delegation standing in front of a wooden house that would be used to shelter returnees to the camp near the town of Mungtao. The background shows a fence topped by barbed wire.
More than 655,500 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after a military crackdown by Myanmar in the northern part of Rakhine state in response to attacks by militants against security forces on Aug. 25. The United Nations described the operation as ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, which Myanmar denies.
Myanmar will begin receiving Rohingya refugees returning from Bangladesh at reception centers and in the temporary camp near Mungtau from Tuesday, and the return process will continue over the next two years as part of an agreement signed by the two countries last week.
The newspaper pointed out that Bangladesh will provide a list of potential returnees with proof of residence in Myanmar. Some would return by road while others would cross a river in the border area, she said.
Some Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s vast Cotobalong camp are hesitant to return home before Myanmar offers guarantees for their safety as well as other demands by camp leaders on a list seen by Reuters.
With Myanmar ready to start receiving the Rohingya this week, new arrivals to the camp told Reuters the Rohingya escape was continuing under military operations in Rakhine state.
They said more than 100 Muslim Rohingyas had fled from northern Rakhine state to Bangladesh while dozens were waiting to cross the Naf River on the border between the two countries.
* “Detention camps”
The Rohingya rebels said on Saturday the deportation plan was “unacceptable” and that “the Burmese terrorist government is deceiving and deceiving by offering the Rohingya refugee accommodation in so-called temporary camps.”
“Rohingya refugees returning from Bangladesh will never be able to settle in the lands and villages of their fathers and grandparents, but they will spend the rest of their lives and the next generations may spend their lives in those detention camps,” the Rohingya Salvation Army in Arakan said in a statement.
Myanmar has said it will build a temporary camp that can accommodate 30,000 returnees before allowing them to return to their “original places” or “the nearest point of their place of origin.”
Government spokesman Zhao Htai did not respond to the request for comment on the statement of the Rohingya Rescue Army in Arakan.
Paul Freese, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Myanmar, warned of the rush to repatriate Rwandan refugees from Bangladesh “without the consent of refugees based on full knowledge of all aspects of the situation or the application of the essential elements of durable solutions.”
“Further measures are needed to ensure a safe, viable and durable return of refugees to their places of origin and to eliminate the causes of the crisis from their source,” he told Reuters.
UNHCR helps manage the refugee camps but does not participate in the repatriation process between Bangladesh and Myanmar.
