Nearly 300 Myanmar junta personnel who fled to Bangladesh amid fighting in Rakhine State were repatriated on Thursday morning, Bangladeshi officials said.
Two Bangladeshi officials told The Irrawaddy that the 288 personnel were sent home on a Myanmar naval ship after being ferried to the vessel from Cox’s Bazar on a tugboat in the morning.
Soldiers among the junta personnel were not allowed to take with them any weapons or ammunition during the repatriation. They were seen wearing traditional longyi and T-shirts and carrying small bags as they were taken to the heavily guarded tugboat for transport to the Myanmar ship, which was anchored on the two countries’ maritime boundary.
Cox’s Bazar District Police Superintendent Md Mahfuzul Islam said the repatriation of the 288 Myanmar forces was carried out successfully.
Bangladeshi officials said on Wednesday that the Myanmar naval vessel UMS Chindwin would transport the repatriated Myanmar junta personnel, who comprised soldiers, members of the Border Guard Police (BGP), and immigration officials who had fled to Bangladesh amid clashes with the ethnic Arakan Army (AA). Border Guard Bangladesh officials said the 288 Myanmar personnel had been sheltering in Bangladesh since March 11.
Aung Kyaw Moe, the Myanmar regime’s ambassador to Bangladesh, was in Cox’s Bazar to supervise formalities on behalf of his country, Bangladeshi officials said. Bangladesh has no extradition or mutual legal assistance treaty with Myanmar.
Bangladeshi authorities said they had collected details on all those being repatriated before their return. In February, after an earlier group of 330 members of Myanmar’s security forces, including BGP officers, army personnel and immigration officials, took shelter in Bangladesh amid fighting with the AA, Bangkok-based rights group Fortify Rights called on Bangladesh to investigate all repatriated junta personnel for possible involvement in atrocities in Myanmar and to coordinate with the International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation into crimes against the Rohingya.
All 330 in that earlier group were repatriated to Myanmar on a junta naval vessel on Feb. 15.
On Wednesday, a day before it picked up the 288 junta personnel for repatriation, the UMS Chindwin transported to Cox’s Bazar 173 Bangladeshis, mostly released prisoners, deported by the Myanmar junta. Bangladesh officials said that travel documents had been issued to the Bangladeshi deportees to facilitate the move.
Of the deportees, 144 were to be handed over to relatives, while the remaining 29 would face “administrative formalities,” Bangladeshi officials said.
They said most of the Bangladeshis had been jailed in Myanmar for petty offenses including illegal entry, and that Myanmar authorities had arranged clemency for those who were yet to complete their prison terms or were still facing trial.
Cox’s Bazar District Police Superintendent Md Mahfuzul Islam said family members were informed before the deportees arrived.
Saiful Islam, returning from a Myanmar prison, told reporters in Cox’s Bazar that the inability of the Myanmar prison guards and the Bangladeshi inmates to communicate with each other had caused a lot of suffering.
source : irrawaddy