MAUNGDAW, Myanmar: The UN on Wednesday called on Myanmar to give aid agencies unhindered access to camps it has built for tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees before they can return after fleeing Myanmar military operations last year.
An international delegation advising Myanmar toured the Taung Pyo Letwe refugee camp outside the town of Maungdaw near the Bangladesh border. Video of the camp shows long, plywood houses set on a rocky field and surrounded by a wire mesh fence topped with barbed wire.
Bangladesh on Tuesday delayed the repatriation of the largely stateless Rohingya to Myanmar as the process of compiling and verifying the list of people to be sent back was incomplete.
But the UN said necessary safeguards for the refugees were still missing.
“Until the safety and wellbeing of any child returning to Myanmar can be guaranteed, talk of repatriation is premature,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth said in a statement.
The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR said earlier “there are continued restrictions on access for aid agencies, the media and other independent observers” in Myanmar.
The UNHCR called on Myanmar “to allow the necessary unhindered humanitarian access in Rakhine State and create conditions for a genuine and lasting solution.”
More than 688,000 Muslim Rohingya and a few hundred Hindu Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25 last year after the Myanmar military cracked down in the northern part of Rakhine state, amid witness reports of killings, looting and rape, in response to militant attacks on security forces.
Many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar regard the Rohingya community as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The UN described Myanmar’s crackdown as ethnic cleansing, which Myanmar denies.
Myanmar officials told a news conference on Tuesday that Bangladesh was not ready to send back the refugees as scheduled because the potential returnees had not completed the forms Myanmar provided attesting to their former residency in Myanmar.
“They also have to check with the UNHCR about whether it’s voluntary,” Minister of International Cooperation Kyaw Tin told the news conference.
“They need a lot of time to fill out the forms and to determine if they really want to come back.”
But a UNHCR spokesperson in Bangladesh said the agency had not been involved “in the bilateral discussions on repatriations or signed any agreements.”
“We would like to be part of the process and discussions to ensure the reparations are voluntary, safe and sustainable and that any returns are in line with international standards,” said Caroline Gluck, UNHCR’s senior public information officer, in Cox’s Bazar.
Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed earlier this month to complete a voluntary repatriation of the refugees in two years. Myanmar says it has set up two reception centers and the temporary Taung Pyo Letwe camp to receive the first arrivals.
The plan has sparked fears in refugee camps in Bangladesh that people may be forced to return despite a lack of guarantees around their security.
Late on Tuesday, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the delay in the repatriations was a good idea and Washington was concerned about a lack of access for UN organizations.
UN calls on Myanmar for unhindered access to Rohingya camps
UN calls on Myanmar for unhindered access to Rohingya camps
EU leaders begin India visit ahead of ‘mother of all deals’ trade pact
- Antonio Luis Santos da Costa, Ursula von der Leyen are chief guests at Republic Day function
- Access to EU market will help mitigate India’s loss of access to US following Trump’s tariffs
New Delhi: Europe’s top leaders have arrived in New Delhi to participate in Republic Day celebrations on Monday, ahead of a key EU-India Summit and the conclusion of a long-sought free trade agreement.
European Council President Antonio Luis Santos da Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in India over the weekend, invited as chief guests of the 77th Republic Day parade.
They will hold talks on Tuesday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the EU-India Summit, where they are expected to announce a comprehensive trade agreement after years of stalled negotiations.
Von der Leyen called it the “mother of all deals” at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week — a reference made earlier by India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal — as it will create a market of 2 billion people.
“The India-EU FTA has been a long time coming as negotiations have been going on between the two for more than a decade. Some of the red lines that prevented the signing of the FTA continue to this date, but it seems that the trade negotiations have found a way around it,” said Anupam Manur, professor of economics at the Takshashila Institution.
“The main contentious issue remains the Indian government’s desire to protect the farmers and dairy producers from competition and the European Union’s strict climate-based rules and taxation. Despite this, both see enormous value in the trade deal.”
India already has free trade agreements with more than a dozen countries, including Australia, the UAE, and Japan.
The pact with the EU would be its third in less than a year, after it signed a multibillion CEPA (comprehensive economic partnership agreement) with the UK in July and another with Oman in December. A week after the Oman deal, New Delhi also concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement with New Zealand, as it races to secure strategic and trade ties with the rest of the world, after US President Donald Trump slapped it with 50 percent tariffs.
The EU is also facing tariff uncertainty. Earlier this month Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on several EU countries unless they supported his efforts to take over Greenland, which is an autonomous region of Denmark.
“The expediting factor in the trade deal is the unilateral and economically irrational trade decisions taken by their biggest trading partner, the United States,” Manur told Arab News.
Being subject to the highest tariff rates, India has been required to sign FTAs with other major economies. Access to the EU market would help mitigate the loss of access to the US.
The EU is India’s largest trading partner in goods, accounting for about $136 billion in the financial year 2024-25.
Before the tariffs, India enjoyed a $45 billion trade surplus with the US, exporting nearly $80 billion. To the EU’s 27 member states, it exports about $75 billion.
“This can be sizably increased after the FTA,” Manur said. “Purely in value terms, this would be the biggest FTA for India, surpassing the successful FTAs with the UK, Australia, Oman and the UAE.”
