Take measures to halt their entry to Bangladesh

Dhaka has asked Delhi to take measures to halt entry of the Rohingyas from India happening in the last couple of weeks.

"We've sent a note verbale," Mashfee Binte Shams, secretary (east) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told UNB yesterday.

Earlier on Tuesday, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said a good number of Rohingyas are coming to Bangladesh from India through fenced areas in recent times, which he described as a matter of worry. He said those Rohingyas went to India in 2012.

Bangladesh is currently hosting about 1 million Rohingyas in Bangladesh, and more than 750,000 of them fled military attacks in 2017, which the US determined as genocide.

When Bangladesh is already facing multiple challenges including financial, environmental, security and diplomatic ones, the illegal entry of Rohingyas from India over the last three weeks triggered fresh concerns within Bangladesh.

Police and intelligence officials said many of the Rohingyas, who lived in different places in India, sneaked into Bangladesh with the help of brokers and some were detained by law enforcers. They were later sent to the transitional camps in Cox's Bazar.

There is no official record of the numbers of Rohingyas entering so far, but officials said some 500 of them may have entered Bangladesh from India over the last one month.

"We are heavily burdened with the Rohingyas and any sort of illegal entry is a matter of serious concern. It should be stopped immediately," said a top government official engaged in the Rohingya management in Cox's Bazar.