Myanmar to send envoys to Rohingya camps in Bangladesh

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 (AFP): Myanmar is sending a high-level delegation soon to camps in Bangladesh to explain to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims how they can return home, Myanmar's UN ambassador said Monday.

Some 740,000 Rohingya fled a crackdown by Myanmar's military in 2017 in Rakhine state and are living in camps in Cox's Bazar. Many refugees have been traumatized, providing accounts of rape, mass killings and razing of villages.

Myanmar's Ambassador Hau Do Suan told a General Assembly meeting that his government will "dispatch a high level delegation to Cox's Bazar very soon, by the end of July, to explain to the displaced people the arrangements made for the repatriation and resettlement."

He said some 30,000 Rohingya had requested to return, of whom about 13,200 have been verified as former residents and "can return to Rakhine anytime".

Myanmar has faced international pressure to allow the Rohingya to return to Rakhine and grant them citizenship rights.