United Nations, Sep 25: Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has highlighted at the UN General Assembly his country’s sheltering of over 1.2 million forcibly displaced Rohingya from Myanmar for more than nine years, and urged the international community to sustain humanitarian assistance and work towards their safe return.
“This has placed immense pressure on our resources, environment, security and local communities,” Rahman said in his address to the 81st session of the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
“As a densely populated country, Bangladesh believes that the source and origin of the Rohingya crisis lie in Myanmar. Therefore, its solution also lies there. The only solution to this problem is the early safe return of the displaced Rohingya people to their homeland, Myanmar,” he said.
Bangladesh has hosted successive waves of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar since the late 1970s.
More than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees are currently living in Bangladesh, most of them in camps in the Cox’s Bazar area, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. A large number of them arrived after August 2017, when more than 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state following a military crackdown amid widespread violence and human rights abuses.
Bangladesh has consistently said that the Rohingya’s long-term solution lies in voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable repatriation to Myanmar, while the UN has said conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have not been conducive to sustainable returns.
Bangladesh and the UN have also stressed the need for continued international humanitarian assistance for the refugees and their host communities.
Rahman called upon the United Nations and the international community to continue life-saving assistance programmes for the displaced Rohingya until they can be repatriated to Myanmar.
“If the international community fails to ensure justice for the displaced Rohingya people, this could turn into a humanitarian crisis in the near future,” said Rahman, the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. (PTI)
