Rohingya team visits Rakhine to monitor repatriation arrangements

May 06, 2023 00:00:00

A delegation, comprising 20 Rohingya refugees and some Bangladeshi officials, boards a speedboat at a jetty on the Naf River in Teknaf's Jaliapara on Friday as it leaves for Myanmar's Rakhine State to see the facilities prepared by the government there ahead of a planned repatriation of the first batch of refugees. — Focus Bangla

COX'S BAZAR, May 5 (UNB): A 27-member delegation including 20 Rohingyas left for Myanmar's Rakhine on Friday morning to monitor the arrangements made by the Myanmar government ahead of a planned repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

The delegation left Cox's Bazar's Teknaf upazila on a speed boat through the Naf River around 9am on Friday. There are 20 Rohingyas, including three women, a translator and six Bangladeshi officials of different departments.

A 16-member BGB team accompanied them to ensure security.

Md Shamsud Douza, the additional refugee relief and repatriation commissioner said the delegation will monitor Myanmar's repatriation arrangement and the situation in Rakhine's Maungdaw town. "They'll visit the place where the Rohingya people will live following their repatriation," he said.

The delegation was expected to come back to Tekhnaf by Friday evening, he added.

Earlier, a list of more than 800,000 Rohingyas was sent to Myanmar from the Bangladesh government. The country had identified about 1,140 people in the first phase as a pilot project to repatriate from the list.

Later, Myanmar voiced objections regarding 429 individuals on the list.

On March 15, a 19-member technical team came to Cox's Bazar's Teknaf, and met 480 members of 177 Rohingya families and returned to Myanmar.

Meanwhile, Reuters report from Jakarta adds, Indonesia's foreign minister on Friday confirmed her country had engaged with Thailand, China, India and the United Nations on the crisis in Myanmar, as well as Myanmar's key stakeholders, during which it called for an immediate halt to violence.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told a press conference it was crucial to build trust and not use megaphone diplomacy.

Retno earlier on Friday told Reuters exclusively that Indonesia, the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), had been communicating with key stakeholders in Myanmar's crisis, with its diplomats involved in more than 60 engagements in the past four months.