Rohingya are seen after arriving on a boat to Bangladesh on 14 September 2017 in Shah Porir Dip, Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since August 2017 during the outbreak of violence in the state of Rakhine.
Allison Joyce | Getty Images
Bangladesh hopes Southeast Asian countries will put pressure on Myanmar to repatriate displaced Rohingya and bring them home, according to Foreign Minister.
AK Abdul Momen said Bangladesh was carrying the burden of the Rohingya Muslims, who were seeking refuge after a mass exodus in the South Asian country due to a brutal repression by the Myanmar army in 2017.
The Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim minority from the state of Rakhine in western Myanmar. Although there have been major migrations from Rohingya to Bangladesh since the 1970s, no one has been as fast and massive as the August 2017 exodus.
“About 1.1 million persecuted Rohingyas are now being sheltered in Bangladesh,” Momen told CNBC’s “Streets Signs Asia” on Monday. “Our priority is for these persecuted Rohingya people to return to their homes for a decent living,” he said.
Bangladesh has taken over the Rohingya for humanitarian reasons, but the South Asian nation is now ‘in trouble with them’, Momen said. He hopes that the member states of ASEAN – or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – will play a strong role in the forthcoming summit to get Myanmar’s military government to take back the refugees.
“Now that the government in Myanmar has been invited by the ASEAN (to) the summit in Indonesia, that is good news. At least they will go there and then they will hopefully put pressure on ASEAN to take back their people,” Momen said. said. said.
Myanmar is currently in a state of emergency, following a military coup on February 1, in which the powerful junta ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Momen’s comments come after Myanmar’s military commander Min Aung Hlaing on April 24 after the ASEAN summit in Indonesia. according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 700 civilians have been killed and more than 3,000 detained so far.
Observers have warned that Myanmar may be on the verge of becoming a ‘failed state’ and that the world’s major powers must make greater international efforts to resolve the violence.
While Bangladesh’s foreign minister did not take a stand on the latest military coup, he stressed that his government wants stability to return to Myanmar.
“Bangladesh believes in democracy. And we want the justice system to prevail,” Momen said, adding that his country does not support violence because it only leads to “more violence and insecurity.”