By Sudipto Ganguly and Ruma Paul
DHAKA (Reuters) – A team of 20 Rohingya Muslims and some Bangladeshi officials will visit Myanmar’s Rakhine state on Friday for a day as part of a planned repatriation effort, a Bangladesh repatriation official told Reuters.
Nearly one million Rohingya Muslim refugees are living in camps in the border district of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, most having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner in Cox’s Bazar, said it was a “go and see” visit and the delegation would return the same evening.
“We want to show them the arrangements that are being done for their repatriation in the Rakhine state of Myanmar,” he said by phone. “We want to build their confidence in the repatriation process and ensure voluntary participation in it. Bangladesh has always spoken about their dignified and sustainable repatriation and this is an effort towards that.”
A Bangladesh government official, who did not want to be named, said “around 1,100 Rohingya will be repatriated if all goes well”.
“But we are not sure when the repatriation will start,” said the official.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai and Ruma Paul; Editing by Krishna N. Das)
