COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh – Bangladesh has no scope to allocate more resources for its 1.3 million Rohingya refugees, chief adviser Muhammad Yunus said on Aug 25, urging the international community to find a sustainable solution to the crisis.
Children make up half of the 1.3 million Rohingya refugees now living in Bangladesh, most of whom fled a brutal 2017 military crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar that UN investigators called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
Hosting the refugees has put a huge strain on Bangladesh, in areas from its economy and environment to governance, said Dr Yunus, a Nobel peace laureate and the South Asian nation’s de facto prime minister.
“We don’t foresee any scope whatsoever for further mobilisation of resources from domestic sources, given our numerous challenges,” he said in a speech.
He called for the international community to draft a practical road map for their return home.
“The Rohingya issue and its sustainable resolution must be kept alive on the global agenda, as they need our support until they return home.”
Dr Yunus’ comments marked the eighth anniversary since more than 700,000 Rohingyas arrived within a matter of days, turning the area around the south-eastern coastal town of Cox’s Bazar into the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Tens of thousands of them held rallies on Aug 25 in camps there, carrying banners and posters that proclaimed “No more refugee life”, “Stop genocide” and “Repatriation the ultimate solution”.
In Bangladesh, the refugees live in crammed bamboo shelters amid dwindling aid, closed schools and little hope of return.
Over the past year, another 150,000 have arrived from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, where fighting has escalated between junta troops and the Arakan Army, an ethnic militia drawn largely from the Buddhist majority.
The Myanmar military calls the operation against the Rohingya a legitimate counter-terrorism campaign in response to attacks by Muslim militants, not a planned programme of ethnic cleansing.
Attempts to begin their return home in 2018 and 2019 failed as the refugees, fearing prosecution, refused to go back. REUTERS
