Rohingyas appeal for repatriation by 2023

Staff Reporter :
The Rohingyas have made an appeal to the world community to make arrangement for safe, dignified and secured repatriation to their homeland in the Rakhine State of Myanmar by 2023.
With a slogan ‘Go Home Campaign-2023’, the Rohingyas made the appeal from a rally held in Kutupalang Lambashia Rohingya Camp in Ukhiya of Cox’s Bazar district on Saturday.
More than five years have elapsed since their exodus in August 2017 following the persecution by the Myanmar Military Junta, but Myanmar did nothing to take back a single Rohingya despite repeated assurances.
After being subjected to ethnic cleansing and atrocities, murder, rape and arson attacks, some seven lakh Rohingyas entered Bangladesh. And currently over 1.1 million Rohingyas have been living about in 34 different camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char area.
The persecuted Rohingyas are now living in labyrinth camps of bamboos and tarpaulins and passing hard times with minimal facilities and little access to education as well as high rate of population growth.
Apart from the lack of basic needs, the camp areas are becoming the den of various crimes viz murder, trafficking, rape and drug dealings, which are ruining the camp’s peaceful environment with a threat to the locals.
Now on the eve of New Year, thousands of Rohingyas, both young and old, from different camps Kutupalang, Balukhali and Lambashia gathered at a playground early in the morning on Saturday, demanding their repatriation with the cooperation of world community.
Expressing frustration for the delay of their return, Rohingya leaders said, “We don’t want to be a burden for Bangladesh any more. Different nations will celebrate the New Year whereas we don’t have such opportunity. We will celebrate such events only when we will return home. It is our soul’s demand.”
In the rally, thousands of Rohingyas including women and children gathered holding posters and placards with the writing ‘2023 should be Rohingya Home Year’ and ‘Enough is Enough, Let’s Go Home…’
The Rohingya leaders demanded their rights and safe return to Myanmar.
“People are celebrating the New Year. But we don’t have any celebration in our life because we are refugees. We want to celebrate the New Year in our birth place in Myanmar in the coming days,” Arakan Acting Chairman of the Society for Peace and Human Rights Mohammad Jubayer said.
“It is our appeal to the world community to make effective measures for our return. We have been shedding our tears for five years. Come here and see it,” he added.
Another Rohingya leader Master Md Musa said, “Years come and years go, but we don’t get any good tidings. We want to return home by 2023. It is our heart’s demand. We hope, world community will make arrangement for our return to our homeland.”
Though it was a large gathering inside the camps, the Rohingyas finished the programme peacefully.
The Armed Forces Battalion said that the Rohingyas held their rally peacefully to press home their demand.
Since the exodus of Rohingyas in 2017, Bangladesh government made its position clear to the international community that they must return their homeland in Myanmar from their temporary shelter in Bangladesh. As Myanmar has created the problem, the solution lies there.
More than five years have passed, but the Myanmar government could not start their repatriation but has been delaying the process.
Between these times, a case is pending in the International Court of Justice which has been trying Myanmar for committing ‘genocide.’
As the latest development, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on December 22 adopted its first-ever resolution on the situation in Myanmar placing an important focus on the Rohingya crisis and its sustainable solution.
Referring to the ongoing political unrest in Myanmar, continuous deterioration of its democratic institutions and arbitrary detention of political leaders, the resolution, among others, urges for ending violence and inclusive political dialogue.
The resolution was adopted with 12 of the 15 members of the UNSC in favor, while India, China, and Russia abstained, but none of the Council members voted against or used veto power to block its adoption. The United Kingdom tabled the resolution.
In the context of multifaceted global challenges including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the resolution is a demonstration of the UN’s supreme body’s determination towards resolving the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations said in a statement at that time.