CHATTOGRAM, May 13: Over one million Rohingya people, who have been given temporary shelter in Bangladesh on humanitarian ground, are citizens of Myanmar, and they must be repatriated to their country at the soonest possible time.
They are not Bangladeshi citizens and have no cultural and social relations with the people of Bangladesh. But their prolonged stay here poses a serious threat to the socio-economic state of a developing country like Bangladesh, having over 20 million people under poverty level.
Despite such multi-dimensional constraints, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) needs to incorporate allocation in the upcoming national budget for the fiscal year 2018-19 (FY 19) for the sheltered Rohingyas.
The GoB can allocate a fund temporarily for them. But that allocation should not give any wrong message to the people of Bangladesh and to the world community of any overstay here other than the quickest repatriation of the Rohingyas to their homeland in Myanmar, experts opined.
The observations came up in a policy dialogue - 'Economic Implications of the Rohingya Crisis for Bangladesh and National Budget FY 2019' - organised at a hotel in Chattogram on Sunday.
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) organised the dialogue in association with Socheton Nagorik Committee (Sonak) - TIB (Transparency International, Bangladesh) Chattogram city unit.
A number of researchers, social scientists, economic and military experts, university teachers, representatives of different non-government organisations (NGOs), professionals, diplomats and business people spoke at the programme. Professor Alamgir Mohammed Sirajuddin of Chittagong University addressed the dialogue as the chief guest.
CPD Distinguished Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya chaired the programme, while CPD Executive Director Dr Fahmida Khatun presented the keynote paper.
Vice Chancellor of University of Science and Technology (USTC) Professor Pravat Barua and former ambassador of Bangladesh to Myanmar Major (retired) Emdadul Islam spoke at the event as special guests.
Sonak-TIB city unit president Advocate Akhtar Kabir Chowdhury delivered the welcome address.
The speakers said the forced displacement of the Rohingya people from Myanmar and their influx to Bangladesh has created a grave situation for Bangladesh with potentially serious consequences from a number of dimensions. The GoB has been actively dealing with the multi-pronged issues.
They also said various international agencies and non-state actors in Bangladesh have also been involved in addressing the situation. But the influential countries are not exercising their power by imposing financial and other embargoes to compel the Myanmar authority to quickly repatriate the displaced people.
Humanitarian response plan estimated that a total of US$ 434 million was required for them for six months, starting from September 2017. But as of March 25, 2018, around $ 322 million has been received, which is around 74.4 per cent of the total fund.
Dr Fahmida said $ 950 million is needed under Joint Response Plan (JRP) for March-December 2018 to meet the immediate needs of more than 880,000 Rohingya refugees and over 330,000 Bangladeshis, affected by the crisis.
Food security, WASH, shelter and non-food products, camp site management, health, nutrition and emergency education-related activities are the key requirements of the plan. Under it, minimum 25 per cent of the fund will be used in different sector-wise development for the host community.
Professor Alamgir said the wealthy Middle-East countries are providing billions of US$ as assistance for the refugees, shifting from different Muslim states to Germany and other European countries.
But these countries have not come forward with their support for the Rohingya Muslims, sheltered in Bangladesh. It is simply impossible for Bangladesh to shoulder such a huge financial burden.
The international community is now crying out for the Rohingyas' plight. But if any graver situation surfaces elsewhere in the world, the global leaders will no more turn their eyes to the problem Bangladesh has been facing so severely, he opined.
Dr Debapriya said this is the election year, and it is expected that the government will provide allocation in the budget for the sheltered people. But Bangladesh must not send any wrong message to the world that the Rohingyas would be settled here for long.
Major (retd) Emdad said the international community should pressurize the Myanmar leaders by imposing strict sanctions on the country to compel them to take back their people at the earliest.
Engineer Delwar Majumder said some people are regularly briefing the Rohingyas in mosques and madrasas in Cox's Bazar that they will be settled down in Bangladesh, and they will face harsher days if they go back to Myanmar.
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