DHAKA: Bangladesh will not receive any more Rohingya fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, said Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, Mizanur Rahman on Saturday.
The development comes amid reports that people from the areas affected by fighting have been gathering on the border of Bangladesh.
There are concerns that a war between Myanmar’s junta and the Arakan Army of opposition ethnic minority would spark a new wave of refugees seeking safety in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Clashes between forces of Myanmar’s military-controlled government and insurgents in Rakhine and Chin States began in late October 2023 with a multi-pronged offensive against the junta, which has been controlling the country since early 2021.
Most of the Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh after a brutal military crackdown and persecution in 2017 come from the Rakhine state of Myanmar. The state has been under the control of the Arakan Army, which last week said Myanmar junta would attempt to recapture it.
Mizanur Rahman said a fierce gun battle is going on in Myanmar and, every day, people are dying. “We have heard that (some) Rohingyas have tried to enter Bangladesh … (they) have gathered on the border on the Myanmar side, mainly near the Teknaf subdistrict under Cox’s Bazar,” he said.
More than million Rohingyas living in Bangladesh
More than a million Rohingya Muslims currently living in camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, turning the district into the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Rahman added that Bangladesh cannot welcome more refugees and will not allow any more Rohingya to enter the country from the border of Myanmar.
He said the Rohingyas living in Cox’s Bazar camps are very anxious about the fate and safety of their relatives living in Maungdaw city of Rakhine state and the adjacent areas. He said Bangladesh is already overburdened with more than 1 million of Rohingyas and is not in a position to receive a single more Rohingya.
According to the UN estimates 95 percent of Rohingya refugees are dependent on humanitarian assistance, which has been coming down since 2020, despite urgent requests for donations by the World Food Program (WFP) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The humanitarian crisis has begun to affect the host community, which, despite not being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, has been welcoming the Rohingya by providing not only land, but also water, healthcare, electricity, and a huge law-enforcement presence.
The Bangladeshi Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief estimates the government has already spent around $2 billion since the start of the crisis on maintaining infrastructure for Rohingya refugees.
