A rights group has accused Dhaka of facilitating ethnic cleansing of indigenous Buddhists by pushing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. This strategy of replacing the minority Jumma people of Bangladesh with the Rohingyas has been a factor in the latter’s persecution in Myanmar, the group said. The Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) submitted a report on the Rohingya refugee crisis to Yanghee Lee, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, on the eve of her four-day visit to Bangladesh from Monday (February 20). “That Dhaka’s national survey of Rohingyas conducted in June 2016 focused on all the three districts of CHT confirms that the Rohingya refugees are mainly settled in the CHT,” Chakma said. The Myanmar army had expelled more than 300,000 Indian origin people following a coup by General Ne Win in 1962.

Source: Hindustan Times February 20, 2017 06:28 UTC