Rohingya refugees walk along a road at the Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2019. Dhaka says it cannot handle another influx as it already hosts over a million Rohingya people.
DHAKA — Bangladesh faces intensifying pressure to accept more Rohingya Muslims fleeing the civil war in neighboring Myanmar, a burden the government in Dhaka insists it cannot bear.
Hundreds of Rohingyas have gathered at various points along the nations’ border, seeking shelter as Myanmar’s military regime battles a strong resistance offensive. Mostafa Mohammad Sazzad Hossain, a spokesman in Dhaka for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Nikkei Asia this week: “It is vital that civilians — children, women and men — fleeing conflict be allowed to seek and access safety. Denying access to safety further puts them at risk.”
But the Bangladeshi government is holding firm, arguing that it already hosts over a million Rohingya refugees and cannot take in any more.
At a meeting of the National Task Force on Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals in Dhaka on Feb. 14, the UNHCR’s representative, Sumbul Rizvi, asked Bangladesh to accept 900 Rohingya people who were waiting at 19 different points along the border, citing humanitarian grounds, according to officials in Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry.
Sources familiar with the talks said Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen refused and referred to recent, repeated comments by other ministers who have said that no additional Rohingya refugees would be accepted.
“We will not allow any more Rohingya to enter the country,” Obaidul Quader, the minister of road transport and bridges, told reporters earlier this month. “They have already become a burden for us,” he added, stressing that international aid had declined. “How long can we support them?”
The UNHCR’s Hossain told Nikkei, “We continue to advocate with Bangladesh authorities, in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar, to enable civilians fleeing conflict in Myanmar, Rohingyas and non-Rohingyas, access to safety.” Most of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh live in camps in Cox’s Bazar. He vowed that the U.N. refugee agency and its partners would offer support in assisting any new arrivals.
Bangladesh considers the existing refugees both a financial and security problem. It wants to send them back, but attempts to arrange repatriation have gone nowhere, amid concerns over their safety. Around 700,000 of them fled a brutal military crackdown in 2017 that a United Nations fact-finding team said had “genocidal intent” — an allegation denied by Naypyitaw.
With an estimated two-thirds of Myanmar now engulfed in conflict, according to the U.N., repatriation appears to be an even more remote prospect.
This month, around 330 Myanmar nationals — mainly regime forces as well as some civilians — crossed into Bangladesh. They were running from fierce attacks by the Arakan Army, one of many armed ethnic resistance groups, near the border with Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar districts. Amid strong protests by the Bangladeshi government, which was also angered by stray gunfire landing in its territory, Myanmar took them back on Feb. 15.
As conditions inside Myanmar deteriorate, worries are growing about the impact on not only Bangladesh but other neighbors as well.
Donald Lu, U.S. assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, on Saturday voiced concerns over risks to Bangladesh and India stemming from the Rohingya crisis and ongoing conflict.
“The situation there [in Myanmar] doesn’t appear to be getting better and what worries me is that this refugee crisis, the security problems that it’s creating for Bangladesh and potentially for India as well, could get deeper in the coming days,” he said at an event organized by the United States Institute of Peace, marking the second anniversary of President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Munshi Faiz Ahmed, a former Bangladeshi ambassador to China, insists that the country should not allow in any further Rohingya people despite “pressure” from the international community.
“Pressure will continue coming and we have to overcome that,” he told Nikkei Asia. “Because, we already gave shelter to Rohingyas more than our capacity.” He sees no chance of repatriation without a regime change and restoration of peace in Myanmar.
M. Shakhawat Hussain, a security analyst and retired brigadier general, said the refugee crisis had turned into a “big problem for Bangladesh for a long period” and argued that new solutions are needed. Bangladesh, he suggested, should ask the International Red Cross to push for a safe zone for Myanmar nationals, so they are not forced to flee toward Bangladesh.