A proposed US Senate resolution has urged all parties to refrain from any activity which could continue or worsen the harsh conditions faced by Rohingya refugees.
The resolution put forward by Senator Richard Joseph Durbin on Thursday and it was referred to Foreign Relations Committee.
It said the parties should reject any actions including the confinement of the Rohingya in camps, contained ghettos, or villages were movement is restricted in Burma, or on the flood-prone Bhashan Char island in the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh, or any other location that would result in further isolation.
It also commends Pope Francis for his thoughtful remarks about the future of Burma that respects rule of law, the democratic order, and the dignity and rights of its entire people.
The resolution said Bangladesh and Burma should address the flaws of the November 23, 2017, memorandum of understanding on repatriation through consultation and agreement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since the start of a military crackdown in August 2017n response to attacks by ARSA, a Rohingya armed group, on security posts.
They joined nearly 200,000 Rohingya who had been already been living in camps there for years.
The UN has called the Myanmar military operations a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Myanmar denies the allegation and has said it waged a legitimate counter-insurgency operation after Muslim militants attacked security posts.
Myanmar has rejected accusations of ethnic cleansing and dismissed most accounts of atrocities, blaming Rohingya “terrorists”. It says it is ready to accept back those who fled.
The Rohingya, who regard themselves as native to Rakhine state, are widely considered as interlopers by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority and are denied citizenship.
The U.N. said that Rohingya remaining in Rakhine are under local orders that severely restrict their freedom of movement, preventing them from reaching jobs, school and health care, and called for these to be lifted.