Plans again underway to repatriate Muslims who fled to Bangladesh: Arakan military council spox 

By DMG 05 Feb 2022

DMG Newsroom
5 February 2022, Sittwe 

Arrangements are being made to systematically accept Muslims who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh in fear of the Myanmar military’s deadly and destructive 2016-17 regional clearance operations, according to U Hla Thein, a spokesperson for the Arakan State regime council. 

The Union government has arranged directly to accept returnees at Ngarkhuya repatriation centre for those who come back via waterways and at Taung Pyo Let Wae repatriation centre for those returning overland, U Hla Thein said.  

“We heard that the Union government has arranged systematically to accept returnees. They will be transferred to Hla Poe Khaung transit camp after they are accepted at Ngarkhuya and Taung Pyo Let Wae repatriation centres,” he said, adding that he “did not know” when the repatriation process would begin. 

Returnees will need to carry documents attesting to their health status as free of Covid-19, and will face Covid-19 testing on the Myanmar side before they are accepted, U Hla Thein added. 

“Those who have tested positive for Covid-19 will not be allowed to enter Myanmar. Those who are not infected with coronavirus will be transferred to Hla Poe Kaung transit camp before they are resettled. I do not know the details,” he said. 

On December 17, officials visited the Taung Pyo Let Wae, Ngarkhuya and Hla Poe Khaung repatriation sites in Maungdaw Township. Dr. Thet Thet Khaing, Union minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, and Dr. Aung Kyaw Min, the Arakan State chief minister, reportedly discussed the repatriation process on February 3 in Naypyidaw. 

Multiple efforts to begin a large-scale repatriation programme have foundered in recent years. A Bangladeshi official told Voice of America early last year — less than two weeks before Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup — that he expected the return to begin in June 2021.  

More than 700,000 Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017, when the Myanmar military launched a brutal crackdown that it described as “clearance operations” following two separate attacks on security forces by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.  

The United Nations’ human rights chief at the time described the military’s actions as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” while others in the international community have called it genocide, including Bangladesh’s former foreign minister.