Bangladesh today urged foreign diplomats to keep on their engagement in resolving peacefully the Rohingya issue as their forced and continued exodus to Bangladesh created a humanitarian crisis while the atrocities at their home in Myanmar's Rakhine was still underway.
"Atrocities in the Rakhine State have not been stopped and Rohingyas are continuing to cross the border," a foreign office quoted foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali as telling a diplomatic briefing this afternoon at the State Guest House Padma here.
He said according to the latest counting of the UN agencies the number of forcibly displaced people who crossed into Bangladesh was 5,20,000 since August 25 with nearly 40,000 of them arriving in the past 10 days though Myanmar expressed its willingness to take them back.
Envoys of Australia, China, Egypt, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the USA, the UK, Germany, Canada, India, The Netherlands, Vatican, Denmark, Spain, EU, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Switzerland and Norway attended the briefing.
Ali said Myanmar recently sent its Union Minister at the Office of the State Counselor U Kyaw Tint Swe's who expressed his country's willingness to take back their "displaced residents".
He said Myanmar proposed that principle and criteria agreed upon in a 1992 "Joint Statement" be followed for the return of the Rohingyas but the current situation was "entirely different" from that of the 1992.
"Around half of the Muslim villages in the Northern Rakhine State have been burned down and the burning is still going on. So, identification of Rohingyas based on their residence in Rakhine would not be realistic," Al said.
Bangladesh, he said, therefore, proposed and handed over a new arrangement to the visiting minister outlining the principles and criteria for repatriation and now awaited Myanmar's response while both sides by now at least agreed to form a joint working group in this regard.
"We (however) welcomed the Myanmar representative's Dhaka visit and his willingness to work together for return of the "forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals," the minister said.
Source: BSS