A Myanmar delegation team arrived at Teknaf in Cox's bazaar to scrutinise the Rohingya refugees under the repatriation process, informed Md. Shamsuddowza, Additional Commissioner of Refugee Relief and Repatriation Affairs at 11-30 a.m. on Wednesday (November 1).
He said, a 36 member team from Myanmar arrived at Teknak on October-31 and in two groups, one team members scrutinised 80 Rohingya families and another team members discussed issues related to repatriation with heads of 100 families. Later, in the evening they returned to Myanmar without any decision.
According to sources, on Tuesday (31 Oct), another 34-member Myanmar delegation headed by the Immigration Director of Rakhine state Saw Naing had arrived in Teknaf when the Bangladeshi team headed by the Director General of Myanmar Affairs Cell of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mia Mohd.
Mainul Kabir, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Affairs Commissioner Mijanur Rahman along with Additional RRRC Shamsuddowja and police officials from APBN welcomed the Myanmar team members and discussed with them about the Rohingya repatriation.
However, by signing a Repatriation Pact on November-15, 2018, Myanmar government agreed to take back the Rohingya refugees from August-23, 2019 but the Myanmar government took no action to take them back on time.
Later, under the mediation of China, the talks on Rohingya repatriation issue resumed this year and the Myanmar delegates visited Cox's bazaar three-times to take action on the Rohingya repatriation, visited the Rohingya refugee camps and talked with the heads of the Rohingya refugee families but no visible progress seems to appear in this connection so far.
Earlier this year, Myanmar delegates visited Teknaf two times- on March-15 and on May-25 to exchange views with the Rohingya refugees. At the same time, on May-5 this year, a seven-member Bangladeshi team and a 20-member Myanmar team visited Mongdu of Myanmar to observe the situation there.
In 2018, Bangladesh handed over a list of more than eight lakh Rohingya refugees to the Myanmar government. From the list, Myanmar verified only 1,01000 Rohingya refugees.
It is learnt, more than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are now staying in 33 camps of Cox's Bazaar, Ukhia and Teknaf. But, the Myanmar government did not take back even a single Rohingya refugee in last six-year.
