UN team in Bangladesh to discuss Rohingya crisis

A delegation from the United Nations Security Council has arrived in Bangladesh to examine the situation surrounding thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled a brutal crackdown in their home country of Myanmar.

Bangladesh's acting foreign secretary, M. Khurshed Alam, said Saturday that the UN team was in Bangladesh to visit camps hosting Rohingya refugees and to discuss ways to overcome the refugee crisis in the country.

Alam called the visit “very significant” in light of international efforts to pressure Myanmar to receive back more than 700,000 refugees who fled to Bangladesh after massive violence erupted in the country last summer.

Bangladesh and Myanmar reached an agreement in December for the repatriation to begin in January. However, many refugees still refuse to return to Myanmar out of fears that they might be subject to renewed crackdown by the military and Buddhist mobs.

The UN has repeatedly reiterated that it will work to provide more protection for the refugees and ensure their safe and voluntary return to Myanmar.

Alam said the UN team will meet refugees in the coastal Bangladesh town of Cox's Bazaar where most of the camps are based.

The visit by the UNSC team also comes a day after Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the UN body to issue a resolution to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the Rohingya crisis.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of the HRW, said Friday that if the UN fails to refer Myanmar to the ICC, no one would be held accountable for the devastating conflict that has affected the life of around a million people.

“The lack of a UN Security Council resolution has left the Myanmar government convinced that it has literally gotten away with mass murder,” Roth said in Myanmar’s city of Yangon, while also calling for targeted sanctions on perpetrators of crimes against the Ronhingya and an arms embargo on Myanmar over the issue.

Myanmar launched the crackdown against the Muslims in August 2017 when some of its border and police posts in the western state of Rakhine came under attack by suspected Rohingya militants. The crackdown was rampant with brutal crimes against the Rohingya including rape and collective torture, prompting the UN to designate the action as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

However, the UNSC has failed to adopt an enforceable resolution due to opposition by Myanmar's ally China.

The Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations but they are denied citizenship and are branded illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Bangladesh also denies Rohingya any form of citizenship and insists it cannot accommodate them forever due to increasing economic burden.

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