Dhaka for end to Rohingya repatriation issue: FM

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Raymond Hall, regional representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), called on Foreign Minister (FM) Dr Dipu Moni at the Foreign Ministry in the city Sunday when they discussed early repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, reports UNB.
Dr Dipu Moni said Bangladesh wants to finalise the repatriation of the remaining Myanmar refugees to their homeland as soon as possible, and sought UNHCR assistance in this regard.
During the meeting, Dr Dipu Moni mentioned Myanmar is an immediate neighbouring country and politically of high importance for Bangladesh. She said Bangladesh has economic and commercial cooperation with Myanmar.
The Foreign Minister thanked the UNHCR representative for their support to Bangladesh regarding the Myanmar refugees living in Bangladesh. She mentioned that about 28,000 registered refugees living in two camps and nearly 400,000 unregistered refugees living outside the camps are a heavy burden on Bangladesh economically, socially, environmentally and also in terms of law and order.
Despite the country's severe resource constraints Bangladesh has so far done a good job in providing basic needs to the Myanmar refugees for the last three decades.
The Foreign Minister told Raymond Hall that the continuous flow of illegal entrants was causing massive damage to the country's scarce land, forest and other resources. Deterioration of law and order situation has also been a major concern in Cox's Bazar district due to illegal activities carried out by these illegal entrants from Myanmar.
She said there had been some positive progress with regard to repatriation of the remaining Myanmar refugees especially after the Foreign Minister's visit to Myanmar.
Dr Dipu Moni hoped that as a follow up to that progress the repatriation of the rest of the refugees would be resolved amicably. She expressed the hope that the authorities in Myanmar would soon resume repatriation of their citizens ending their miseries of living away from home.
Both Dipu and Hall agreed that it is necessary to create favourable condition within Myanmar for repatriation of the refugees. She mentioned that some of the refugees repatriated on earlier occasions had sneaked back into Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Food and Disaster Management Minister Dr Abdur Razzak has called for quick and permanent settlement of the decades-old Rohingya problem, which is putting extra burden on Bangladesh's limited resources and causing various social problems.
Dr Razzak made the observation when UNHCR Representative Raymond Hall made a courtesy call on him at his office in the city Sunday.
Dr Razzak said Bangladesh gave shelter to Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on humanitarian ground. Unregistered Rohingyas are spreading to different areas ever since.
He said many problems arose whenever Rohingyas were registered. When the initiative of registration was taken many more Rohingyas started entering the country.
The Food and Disaster Management Minister said Rohingyas think that if they could register in Bangladesh they will get international assistance and also get permanent settlement in a third country.
The UNHCR representative told the Minister that the Myanmar government has allowed them to work in that country and UNHCR has undertaken many development programmes in the Rohingya-inhabited area of Myanmar.
Hall said there should be a list of unregistered Rohingyas. Otherwise, the Myanmar government may give objection to take back the Rohingyas out of the registered list.