Bangladesh demands Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar, crisis solution at OIC meeting

Bangladesh has demanded return of the Myanmar’s Rohingya people living in the country and called for “durable solutions” to the crisis in the Rakhine State.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam made the call on Thursday at an emergency meeting of the OIC foreign ministers in Malaysia.

The ‘Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers on the Situation of the Rohingya Muslim Minority in Myanmar’ was convened in the wake of the ongoing crisis in the Muslim-majority impoverished region.

The meeting ended after adopting a resolution that emphasised “immediate halt of atrocities, unhindered humanitarian access, end of discrimination, ensuring basic rights including restoration of citizenship through reviewing the existing law and sustainable return of refugees and displaced Rohingyas to the Rakhine State”.

The OIC member states urged the secretary general to engage more with Myanmar, the UN and international and regional organisations to address the humanitarian situation and to find a durable solution.

The member states appreciated Bangladesh’s generosity and efforts in hosting hundreds of thousands Rohingya Muslims for decades and called for early repatriation to their homeland in Rakhine State.

Bangladesh government says 65,000 Myanmar citizens crossed the border following an army crackdown launched over terror attacks on the country’s border police in the Rakhine State last October.

Around 33,000 Myanmar nationals are already living in refugee camps and an estimated 300,000 other Myanmar nationals are currently living outside these camps.

Dhaka proposed a programme to return registered and unregistered Myanmar nationals across the border during a recent visit of State Minister U Kyaw Tin who came to Dhaka as a special envoy of de facto prime minister Aung San Suu Kyi.

The foreign ministry said State Minister Shahriar in the OIC meeting called for ensuring basic rights of Rakhine Muslims and sustainable return of refugees and displaced Rohingyas to their homeland.

He particularly emphasised restoring their citizenship through necessary review of the existing exclusionary citizenship law.

He expressed deep concern at recurrence of instability in the Rakhine State resulting in Rakhine Muslims being displaced and uprooted from their ancestral homeland and compelled to take shelter in Bangladesh.

Referring to the recent influx into Bangladesh for shelter, he asked Myanmar to bring normalcy back into the Rakhine State immediately and take steps for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

He urged the OIC to continue working for a long-lasting solution to the problem.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, while inaugurating the meeting, highlighted that the international community “cannot remain silent at the continued suffering of the Rohingya Muslim Community”.

He demanded end to the denial of basic rights of the Rohingya Muslims and atrocities and violence inflicted on them.

OIC ‘s Special Envoy to Myanmar Hamid Albar presented a report on the plight of the Rohingya Muslims and highlighted their subjection to atrocities, gross violation of human rights and collective punishment under state sponsored violence.

He stressed on the need for engaging the international community including Human Rights Council with Myanmar and called upon Myanmar to stop the violence.

The foreign ministry said the OIC countries in general expressed concern at the plight of the Rohingya Muslims, and called for end to discrimination and violence against them, and stressed on the need for restoring basic rights including citizenship. 

Several countries called for strong actions through UN and Human Rights Council.

Countries generally expressed a consensus view that this crisis surrounding the Rakhine Muslims is not merely a humanitarian issue; rather it deserves to be addressed within a human rights perspective.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi thanked Bangladesh for facilitating her visit to Cox’s Bazar to meet the Rohingya refugees and the new arrivals from Rakhine State and informed the meeting that she would be visiting Sittwe shortly.

Shahriar held bilateral meeting with Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman where they discussed bilateral cooperation.

He also had meetings with OIC Secretary General Yousef bin Ahmad Al-Othaimeen, his Qatari counterpart Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi and Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yildiz.