UK to see safe Rohingya repatriation: envoy
British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson on Sunday said Britain wants to see safe and dignified repatriation of forcibly displaced Rohingyas to Myanmar while London has been engaged in the international forum for ensuring the issue is not forgotten.
“As with so many other refugees worldwide, the great majority of the Rohingya population say they want to return home,” he said while addressing "Meet the Reporters" organized by the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity (DRU) on its premises in the capital.
The high commissioner lauded Bangladesh for its "extra ordinary" generosity by extending healthcare, food, shelter and water and sanitation to the persecuted Rohingyas and even roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines for them when it was needed.
He said the Rohingya crisis is a tragedy that involved all as neither one chooses to live in a refugee camp nor to host a large number of displaced population.
Dickson said the UK has been raising the plight of the Rohingya in the UN Security Council since the beginning of the crisis while London supports the efforts of ASEAN Special Envoy as a new Dialogue Dialogue Partner of this of forum of Southeast Asian nations.
He said Britain is leading donor to the international response to the Rohingya refugee crisis having contributed over £320m since 2017 to support both the Rohingyas and the host communities.
DRU President Nazrul Islam Mithu and General Secretary Nurul Islam Hasib also spoke.
Since August 25 in 2017, Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar district and most of them arrived there after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and other rights groups dubbed as “genocide”.
In the last four and half years, not a single Rohingya went back home yet although Myanmar agreed to take them back while repatriation attempts failed twice due to trust deficit among the Rohingyas about their safety and security in Rakhine state.
Source: BSS
