COX’S BAZAR: Bangladesh wants to send up to 100,000 Rohingya back to Myanmar in the first batch of repatriations of Muslim refugees who fled ethnic violence this year, officials said Friday.
Senior minister Obaidul Quader said a list of 100,000 names was to be sent to Myanmar authorities on Friday so repatriations could start in late January under an accord between the two governments.
More than 655,000 Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine state have sought refuge in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in late August, fleeing what the US and UN have described as ethnic cleansing.
That added to more than 300,000 in camps in Bangladesh after fleeing earlier violence in the Buddhist majority state.
The two governments signed an agreement in November allowing for repatriations from Jan. 23. Many aid groups and diplomats doubt that fearful Rohingya will agree to return.
The Rohingya have been the target of past pogroms in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which does not recognize the group as a genuine ethnicity and has stripped them of citizenship.
Quader said repatriations would start as soon as a working group of officials from the two countries finalize a list of names.
“Based on the decision of the joint working group, a first list of 100,000 Rohingya will be sent to the Myanmar government today for their safe and honorable return,” Quader, road transport minister and deputy leader of the ruling Awami League, told reporters during a visit to Cox’s Bazar where the refugee camps are.
“The next meeting of the working group, which will be held in Myanmar, will decide how the repatriation process begins,” Quader added.
“This list will be finalized as early as possible. The repatriation process will begin after the list is finalized.”
Abul Kalam Azad, the government relief commissioner for Rohingya refugees, said a decision was made on Thursday by Bangladeshi members of the repatriation working group to send a list of 100,000 refugees to Myanmar.
He told AFP repatriations would begin after Myanmar verifies the list and the authorities in Bangladesh get consent from willing refugees.
Most Rohingya refugees approached by AFP in the camps insist they do not want to return, saying Rakhine is not safe enough. Diplomats have expressed doubt about whether Myanmar will allow substantial numbers to return.
According to Azad, nearly 1 million Rohingya live in Bangladesh, many of whom have been there for decades. Myanmar has agreed to take back those refugees who arrived since October 2016, believed to number about 700,000.
Dhaka targets 100,000 for first Rohingya repatriation
Dhaka targets 100,000 for first Rohingya repatriation
Myanmar’s military government releases more than 6,100 prisoners on independence anniversary
- It was not immediately clear whether those released include the thousands of political detainees imprisoned for opposing military rule
- The amnesty comes as the military government proceeds with a monthlong, three-stage election process that critics say is designed to add a facade of legitimacy to the status quo
BANGKOK: Myanmar’s military government granted amnesty to more than 6,100 prisoners and reduced other inmates’ sentences Sunday to mark the 78th anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain.
It was not immediately clear whether those released include the thousands of political detainees imprisoned for opposing military rule.
The amnesty comes as the military government proceeds with a monthlong, three-stage election process that critics say is designed to add a facade of legitimacy to the status quo.
State-run MRTV television reported that Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military government, pardoned 6,134 prisoners.
A separate statement said 52 foreigners will also be released and deported from Myanmar. No comprehensive list of those freed is available.
Other prisoners received reduced sentences, except for those convicted of serious charges such as murder and rape or those jailed on charges under various other security acts.
The release terms warn that if the freed detainees violate the law again, they will have to serve the remainder of their original sentences in addition to any new sentence.
The prisoner releases, common on holidays and other significant occasions in Myanmar, began Sunday and are expected to take several days to complete.
At Yangon’s Insein Prison, which is notorious for housing political detainees, relatives of prisoners gathered at the gates early in the morning.
However, there was no sign that the prisoner release would include former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted in the military takeover in 2021 and has been held virtually incommunicado since then.
The takeover was met with massive nonviolent resistance, which has since become a widespread armed struggle.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent organization that keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the nation’s political conflicts, more than 22,000 political detainees, including Suu Kyi, were in detention as of last Tuesday.
Many political detainees had been held on a charge of incitement, a catch-all offense widely used to arrest critics of the government or military and punishable by up to three years in prison.
The 80-year-old Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted in what supporters have called politically tinged prosecutions.
Myanmar became a British colony in the late 19th century and regained its independence on Jan. 4, 1948.
The anniversary was marked in the capital, Naypyitaw, with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall on Sunday.
