Best solution to Rohingya crisis is repatriation to Myanmar: UNHCR

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi has said that the solution to the Rohingya refugee lies 'inside Myanmar'.

“The best solution for them is to be able to go back to their country -- peacefully and voluntarily, when condition permits to this return,” he said on Monday at a press briefing in Dhaka, ending his visit in Bangladesh.

Stressing rapid and efficient verification of citizenship, he said the return has to be sustainable, which is possible if the recommendations of the Myanmar government-formed commission led by former UN secretary general Kofi Anan is implemented.

He urged both Bangladesh and Myanmar leaders to help give the young refugees their future.

“What if we don’t give them future, people who are disenfranchised, improvised, rights trampled upon, this is not a good recipe for stability."

"There are many bad people out there, they can manipulate that,” he said.

“Terrorism is a global phenomenon. We have to be careful about disenfranchising people. It’s our responsibility that we all have to give a future to the people that I saw today and last week”.

Grandi came to Dhaka after visiting Myanmar and Thailand. He met the prime minister, foreign minister and also visited Cox’s Bazar Myanmar refugee camps on Monday.

Before Bangladesh, he also visited Myanmar where he was allowed to visit the northern Rakhine state.

Rohingya refugees who fled sectarian violence and persecution, and took shelter in Bangladesh for decades remained a thorny issue in relations between the two countries.

Myanmar denies them nationality, and they do not use the word 'Rohingya' in identifying the ethnic minority group.

He said the recent political change in Myanmar and efforts being made so far “should make us hopeful to some extent that we have not been in the past”.

At the press briefing, he thanked Bangladesh for sheltering them for years and appealed to the international community to support to Bangladesh to support the Rohingya community.

He said UNHCR was available for whatever activity and work government wanted to do to increase the welfare of the refugees.

He referred to his Myanmar visit and said he had seen the living condition of those 'stateless people'.

The situation of human rights for the Muslim minority there is “very dire”. They do not have citizenship, freedom of movement, association, and congregation. This generates poverty.

“When people have difficulty in having access to services and employment, poverty becomes even worse.”

“You have seen reports of increased malnutrition and maternal mortality in the area”.

He also had a “very constructive and useful” meeting with State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Myanmar government has established a commission that already submitted its preliminary report and would release the final report next month.

The report talked about the necessity to implement the citizenship project.

It recommends relaxing some of the main constraints such as freedom of movement. They also recommended development needs to be brought to the area for both communities.

“I concur very much with those recommendations,” he said.

“Suu Kyi told me that she also agrees and she will do whatever possible to have them implement”.

He said Myanmar government wants “verification” before granting them citizenship.

He said he told the Myanmar authorities to make the process “more clear and simple”. He also told them to do that “efficiently and rapidly”.

“The future of Rakhine state is one to have a peaceful solution to the problem”.

He said during his visit to Cox’s Bazar camps, nobody speaks about the need of food. They just asked -- what is our future? Can we have a normal life?

“We need to give hope. We need to give a future to those people,” he said. “The primary solution is inside Myanmar.”

According to government figure, nearly 400,000 Rohingya refugees live in Bangladesh.

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told the UNHCR that Myanmar had taken “unilateral” decision to halt the repatriation process since 2005 even though both countries had cleared 10,820 refugees through the verification process.

During a meeting on Saturday, Ali also informed the high commissioner that as many as 236,599 Rakhine Muslims had been repatriated till 2005.

He also urged the High Commissioner to call upon the government of Myanmar “to take meaningful measures to ensure the return of all Myanmar nationals staying in Bangladesh to their homeland in Rakhine State”.