Rohingya Return: It will begin next year, Li Jiming hopes
China hopes the Rohingya repatriation will start next year, said Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming yesterday.
He made the statement while paying a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Gono Bhaban, reported UNB.
PM's Deputy Press Secretary KM Shakhawat Moon briefed reporters after the meeting.
Bangladesh has been sheltering the forcibly displaced Rohingyas on humanitarian grounds, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
They are now a burden on Bangladesh for various reasons, she added.
Noting that the displaced people are the nationals of Myanmar, Hasina said, "Now they should return to their own country."
She hoped that Myanmar would take the displaced people back to their country.
Despite repeated efforts involving China, not a single Rohingya could be repatriated over the last five years.
More than a million of them now live in Bangladesh.
The prime minister also expressed her satisfaction over the good progress of several China-assisted mega projects for the infrastructural development of Bangladesh.
Hasina thanked China for its investment in Bangabandhu Tunnel under the Karnaphuli river. She also thanked the president and the prime minister of China.
24 Rohingyas leave for US
Twenty-four Rohingyas yesterday left for the US which has planned to increase the resettlement of refugees from the region.
"This group of Rohingyas is part of 62 Rohingyas recently identified for resettlement in the US," said a foreign ministry official.
The resettlement starts just a day after US Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, Julieta Valls Noyes ended a five-day visit to Bangladesh.
She said the US would resettle more Rohingyas but did not mentioned any figure.
In a statement yesterday, Noyes said as part of the US' unwavering partnership with Bangladesh and comprehensive response to Rohingya refugees, the Biden Administration is very pleased to establish, in coordination with UNHCR and other resettlement countries, a resettlement programme for the most vulnerable Rohingya refugees.
She said now that the Rohingya crisis has become protracted due to the genocide by the Myanmar regime, it is time to look for a comprehensive approach to the solutions until Rohingya repatriation is possible in a safe and sustainable manner.
Earlier this year, Canada resettled about 35 family members of Rohingya leader Mohibullah.
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Tuesday said the government wants the US to resettle the Rohingyas, who fled to Bangladesh before 2016, as the Myanmar government was not willing to take them back.
Under an agreement signed in 2017, Myanmar agreed to take back the Rohingyas who fled in 2016 and 2017. They would be more than a million. And those who fled before that would be around 35,000.
Analysts who study refugee issues say the previous record suggests that the US resettled a small number of Rohingya. Only more than 9,000 Rohingya refugees have resettled in the US over the past decade, primarily from Malaysia.
Analysts say resettling a small number of Rohingyas is not truly helpful because it may create a pull factor and those now in Myanmar's Rakhine state may also flee to Bangladesh, hoping to be resettled in the developed countries.
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