Daily Times

Rohingya Muslims are fleeing Bangladeshi refugee camps to avoid a controversial drive to repatriate them to Myanmar later this week, where the UN says conditions are still not conducive to their return.

Authorities plan to begin returning Rohingya refugees, who have fled what the UN has called ethnic cleansing, to the Buddhist majority country from Thursday. But the prospect has created panic in the camps, prompting some families who were due to be among the first to be repatriated to flee, according to community leaders. “The authorities repeatedly tried to motivate the ones on the returning refugee list to go back. But instead, they were intimidated and fled to other camps,” said Nur Islam, from Jamtoli refugee camp.

More than 720,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state following a military crackdown from August last year, bringing with them stories of murders, rapes and torture. They have joined some 300,000 Rohingya already living in squalid camps in Bangladesh’s southeast for years.

Some 2,260 Rohingya are scheduled to enter Myanmar from Bangladesh’s southeastern Cox’s Bazar district in the first repatriations from Thursday. Director general of Bangladesh’s foreign ministry Delwar Hossain said the refugees would be repatriated in groups of 150 each day during the initial phase. “Both sides have agreed to start repatriation on November 15,” he told AFP on Tuesday, adding it remained a voluntary process.

Confusion and fear

But Nur Islam said the plan has created “massive confusion and fear” among the Rohingya and many were unwilling to return to Rakhine unless they were guaranteed citizenship and other rights.

An AFP correspondent was able to speak to three families who said they were due to leave this week. “We are truly disturbed by the entire issue. As the day is coming closer, our tension is rising,” Mohammad Khaleque, a Rohingya refugee told AFP.

He said he and his family were fleeing their camp for another makeshift Rohingya settlement in Cox’s Bazar, in an effort to avoid being forcibly repatriated. “I don’t see a future for my family if we’re forcibly sent back home right now without confirming that we would get full Myanmar citizenship,” he said. “We don’t want to go back like this.” But a small number of Hindus from Rakhine, who also fled the violence alongside the Rohingya, said they were ready to return if the passage was safe.

Published in Daily Times, November 14^th 2018.