Bangladesh intensifies vigil on Myanmar borders

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday said Bangladesh has secured its border along with Myanmar in fear of outbreak of fresh influx of Rohingyas as military took the state power in the neighboring country and declared one-year emergency after arresting civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“We have secured our border (to stop potential Rohingya influx),” he told reporters at his office today, reports BSS.

However, the foreign minister said Dhaka is not suspecting any further Rohingya influx due to changed situation in Myanmar.

“But some of our friendly countries fear that rest of the Rohingyas would flee to Bangladesh from Rakhine (as military took state power in Myanmar), he added.

Momen said Dhaka wants to continue talking with Myanmar for advancing the ongoing process of commencing Rohingya repatriation.

On January 19 last, the secretary level tripartite meeting among Bangladesh, China and Myanmar decided to hold the next joint working group meeting on February 4 for advancing the discussion about commencing repatriation of Rohingyas.

The scheduled tomorrow’s joint working group meeting is yet to be uncertain as Dhaka didn’t communicate with Myanmar officially after the coup, an official said.

Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar district and most of them arrived there since August 25, 2017 after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” by other rights groups.

In last three years, Myanmar did not take back a single Rohingya while the attempts of repatriation failed twice due to trust deficit among the Rohingyas about their safety and security in the Rakhine state.

Bangladesh handed over biometric data of 8,30,000 Rohingyas while the Myanmar authority so far verified only 42,000 displaced people out of the list.