BANGKOK: Two UN officials told AFP that the UN refugee agency helped junta officials from Myanmar travel to Bangladesh this week for repatriation talks with Rohingya refugees, despite the fact that UNHCR believes that conditions in Myanmar are still unsafe for their return.
About one million Rohingya live in Bangladesh after fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017, which is now the subject of a United Nations genocide investigation.
Myanmar’s Immigration Ministry sent a 17-person team to the border town of Teknaf on Wednesday to conduct interviews with refugees in preparation for their possible repatriation to the country.
Thursday, a UNHCR spokesman in Myanmar told AFP that the organization had “facilitated the transport of some officials” from Myanmar to Bangladesh “in support of interaction between the de facto authorities in Myanmar and refugees.”
An official from the commission said the Myanmarese delegation intended to interview more than 700 Rohingya in order to determine whether or not they would be a good fit for return to Myanmar.
A high-ranking UN official in Bangladesh said on Friday that the transportation had been facilitated by UNHCR and the World Food Programme in Myanmar, who had provided boats for the junta officials’ travel.
“I can confirm that UNHCR and WFP provided boats for junta officials to come,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
There is “no prospect for a safe, dignified, and sustainable return in the immediate future,” Johannes van der Klaauw, the UNHCR’s representative in Bangladesh, said this month. The Rohingya are hoping to return to Myanmar.
Many Myanmar citizens view the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and human rights organizations report that Rohingya citizens who remain in the country are denied access to basic services like healthcare and education and must obtain special permits to leave the country.
Junta leader and military chief during the 2017 crackdown Min Aung Hlaing has called the Rohingya people’s ethnicity “imaginary.”
The decision was made “within the framework” of a 2018 non-binding memorandum of understanding between the UNHCR and Myanmar, the spokesperson said, with the goal of “creating the conditions conducive to the voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees.”
According to the spokesperson, no UN agencies were involved in the talks held in Bangladesh.
The spokesperson did not say whether or not members of Myanmar’s military, police, or security forces had used the boats provided.
According to an email sent by the UNHCR’s resident coordinator in Myanmar and obtained by AFP, the UN provided boats for the journey to Bangladesh after a “very firm request” by junta officials, and the UN markings were removed before the journey.
The UNHCR spokesperson did not provide any additional details about the junta’s “very firm request” for the boats.
An official from the commission said the Myanmarese delegation intended to interview more than 700 Rohingya in order to determine whether or not they would be a good fit for return to Myanmar.
A spokesman for the Myanmar junta confirmed to AFP that the trip was happening but declined to provide further details.
It has taken years for a repatriation plan agreed upon by Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2017 to make any real progress, in part because of fears that the Rohingya would not be safe if they returned.
Neither the coronavirus pandemic nor the 2021 military coup in Myanmar allowed any forward movement.
