Foreign Minister Dipu Moni yesterday hoped that the authorities in Myanmar would soon resume repatriation of their citizens to bring an end to their miseries of living away from their own homes.
She expressed the hope when regional representative of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Raymond Hall called on her at the foreign ministry, says a press release.
Both Dipu Moni and Hall agreed on the necessity of creating favourable condition within Myanmar for repatriation of the refugees.
During the meeting, the minister said Myanmar is an immediate neighbouring country and politically of high importance for Bangladesh.
Some 28,000 registered in two camps and nearly 400,000 unregistered refugees living outside the camps putting heavy burden on Bangladesh economically, socially, environmentally and also in terms of law and order issues.
“Despite her severe resource constraints, Bangladesh has so far done a good job in providing basic needs to the refugees for the last three decades,” Dipu said.
The foreign minister told the UNHCR representative that the continuous flow of illegal entrants were causing huge damage to our scarce land, forest and other resources.
“Deterioration of law and order situation has also been a major concern in Cox's Bazar district due to illegal activities carried out by the illegal entrants from Myanmar,” she added.
She said there had been some positive progress with regard to repatriation of the remaining Myanmar refugees, especially after her visit to Myanmar. “I hope that as a follow-up to that progress, the repatriation of the rest of the refugees would be completed amicably.”
She also mentioned that some of the refugees repatriated on earlier occasions had sneaked back into Bangladesh.
The foreign minister sought UNHCR assistance in this connection.