KARACHI: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are set to sign an agreement next week to address the longstanding issue of legal status of Rohingya Muslim refugees, who had traveled to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan in the 1960s, the Pakistani interior ministry said on Wednesday.
The issue pertains to thousands of Rohingya Muslims who had moved to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan’s Karachi after they were allocated lands by then Pakistani military ruler Ayub Khan, following their exodus due to a military operation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, according to media reports.
Pakistan, which kept on renewing their passports, stopped the process in 2012. Pakistani and Saudi authorities had been in talks to resolve the issue of these Rohingya Muslims, who had become stateless after Islamabad stopped renewing their passports.
The issue came under discussion at a meeting between Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan Nawaf bin Saeed Al-Malki in Islamabad to review bilateral relations between the two countries, according to the Pakistani interior ministry.
“They also expressed satisfaction that the longstanding issue regarding the legal status of Rohingya Muslims between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia has been resolved,” the ministry said.
“The Saudi ambassador thanked the Government of Pakistan for its positive role in resolving the matter. A formal agreement on this issue will be signed next week in Saudi Arabia.”
The southern Pakistani port city of Karachi is still home to more than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims, the highest number after Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to unofficial estimates.
They began to arrive in the region in the early 1940s, before the creation of Pakistan. A majority of these refugees settled in Pakistan from 1960 to 1980 after they were accommodated in two Karachi settlements, Burma Colony and Arkanabad, following a long and grueling journey via Bangladesh and India.
Since then, there have been no mass migrations as India closed its borders with Bangladesh and put restrictions on travel on borders with Pakistan.
