The return of a single Rohingya family to Myanmar from the zero line cannot be described as repatriation as the process is yet to start and that the family never crossed in to Bangladesh, says Dhaka.
Bangladesh’s Refugee Commissioner Md Abul Kalam said on Sunday that the family had been living in a camp on a strip of “no man’s land” between the countries.
“Some Rohingyas have been stranded at the no man’s land at Konarpara near Myanmar. And one of the families from there went back. Since they never entered Bangladesh, it can’t be included in the repatriation process,” he said.
Several thousands of Rohingyas have been living in the zero line, crammed in a cluster of tents beyond a barbed-wire fence roughly demarcating the border between the countries.
Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan echoed Refugee Commissioner Kalam and added taking back a single family from the tens of thousands people is a “joke”.
“On single family among the 6,000 families, it’s a joke. We hope the Myanmar government will take them back as soon as possible,” he told the media in Dhaka on Sunday.
According to him, more than 1 million Rohingyas are now in Bangladesh. “All of them have gone through biometric screening and we have provided the information to Myanmar.”
The Myanmar government says it has repatriated the first Rohingya family of nearly 700,000 refugees who fled since last August, Reuters reported.
“Five members of a Muslim family...came to the Taungpyoletwea reception centre in Rakhine state this morning,” the government said in a statement late on Saturday.
The family members were scrutinised by immigration and health ministry officials and provided with aid, said the statement.
It added that the family members who “are in line with the rules” were issued the National Verification Cards (NVCs) upon entering Myanmar.
NVCs are part of the government’s ongoing effort to register Rohingyas that falls short of offering them citizenship. The card has been widely rejected by Rohingya community leaders, who say they treat life-long residents like new immigrants.
Bangladesh is now home to some 1.1 million Rohingyas after the latest exodus triggered by a military crackdown in northern Rakhine in response to insurgents’ attacks on dozens of police posts and an army base.