Rohingya refugees who return to Myanmar following a Bangladesh-Myanmar repatriation agreement will initially have to live in temporary shelters or camps.
“Primarily, they will be kept at temporary shelters or arrangements for a limited time,” Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali told reporters in Dhaka on Saturday.
Military crackdown
The United Nations says 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August and now live in squalor in the world's largest refugee camp after a military crackdown in Myanmar that the United Nations and Washington said clearly constituted "ethnic cleansing".
Bangladesh and Myanmar signed the repatriation agreement on Thursday paving the way for an “earliest return” of the Rohingya refugees, according to the deal, which Dhaka released on Saturday.
Under the agreement, Myanmar “would restore normalcy in Northern Rakhine [State] and to encourage those who had left Myanmar to return voluntarily and safely to their own households” or “to a safe and secure place nearest to it of their choice”.
The deal said, “Myanmar will take all possible measures to see that the returnees will not be settled in temporary places for a long period of time and their freedom of movement in the Rakhine State will be allowed in conformity with the existing laws and regulations.”
Since most of the Rohingya villages were burnt during the violence, many would have no choice but to live in temporary shelters, Mr. Ali said.
“Most villages are burnt. So where they will return? There are no houses. Where they will live? It is not possible to physically [return to their houses],” he said.
