Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed to set up a working group to plan the repatriation of more than half a million Rohingya Muslim refugees who have fled to Bangladesh to escape an army crackdown.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said in Dhaka today that he and Myanmar official Kyaw Tint Swe had agreed in their talks to set up the working group. Reuters report that Kyaw Tint Swe did not speak to the media and government spokesmen in Myanmar were not immediately available for comment.
The report adds that the two neighbours have agreed on repatriation plans before, but the fundamental problem – the status of Rohingya in Myanmar – remains unsettled.
The Rohingyas denied citizenship and classified as illegal immigrants in Myanmar. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a meeting in Geneva recently that problems of statelessness had to be tackled.
He said, nowhere is the link between statelessness and displacement more evident than with the Rohingya community.