Junta officials meet Muslim refugees

By Admin 26 May 2023

DMG Newsroom
26 May 2023, Sittwe
 
Junta officials of Arakan State Administration Council met Muslim refugees in Bangladesh’s Teknaf regarding their repartition to Myanmar on Thursday.
 
A 14-member delegation including Arakan State social affairs minister U Aung Myo and Maungdaw district administrator met 280 refugees and explained what authorities are doing to bring them back to Arakan State.
 
Refugees however were not allowed to express their concerns, said a Muslim refugee who attended the meeting.
 
“The regime said they would accept us back at transit camps in Taungpyo Letwe and Nga Khu Ya. After about three days there, we will be moved to Hla Poe Kaung transit camp. Then, we will be accommodated in 15 villages they have arranged for us, and an NVC (national verification card) will be issued to us. We could not make any demand at the meeting,” said a Muslim refugee.
 
Muslim refugees had planned to demand three things: that they be allowed to live back in their original places, that they be granted Myanmar citizenship, and their security be guaranteed. But they could not press any demands at the meeting, said refugees.
 
Muslim refugees will not return, said Ko Aung Myaing from Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.
 
“They are doing as they please without trying to fulfill our requirements. They are just doing it to pacify the international community,” he said.
 
On May 5, the regime took around 20 Muslim refugees to Maungdaw and showed them around transit camps which it had planned for repatriation.
 
The regime plans to bring back over 1,000 Muslim refugees in the first batch, but it is not yet clear when exactly the repatriation will start.
 
The regime has stepped up the repatriation process in less than two weeks after Cyclone Nargis hit Arakan State not out of sympathy, but because of the need to defend their actions at the International Court of Justice, said political observers.
 
Some 700,000 Muslims fled to Bangladesh in Myanmar military’s counter-insurgency operation that followed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks on border guard police outposts in Maungdaw in 2017.