“It would be a terrible mistake to relocate the Rohingya refugees to an uninhabitable island that is far from other refugee settlements and vulnerable to flooding,” said Amnesty International South Asia Director Biraj Patnaik. In late August, a Myanmar military crackdown forced over 600,000 new Rohingya refugees to cross the border, spurring the government to speed up its residence construction initiative. Last week the Bangladesh government signed a deal with Myanmar to return nearly 700,000 Rohingya refugees following the October 2016 and August 2017 military crackdowns. A recent Amnesty International report on the situation of Rohingyas in Myanmar says they have been trapped in a vicious system of state-sponsored, institutionalised discrimination that amounts to apartheid. “Bangladesh should postpone any repatriation agreement until conditions are in place for refugees to return voluntarily and in safety and dignity,” said Biraj Patnaik.

Source: bd News24 November 29, 2017 05:37 UTC