World leaders must heed PM Hasina’s call

We appreciate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's call to world leaders to take the issue of Rohingya repatriation seriously and do more to put pressure on Myanmar in order to start the process soon, particularly in order to avoid any security risks in the region and beyond. She made the call while addressing the fourth edition of the Paris Peace Forum 2021 on Thursday. The recent unrest in the Rohingya camps, following the assassination of a Rohingya leader and the death of an alleged Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) leader in a Rohingya camp, has brought to the fore the rising security issues in the camps. It has become a big challenge for our law enforcers to stop criminal activities like drug peddling, weapons trafficking and human trafficking, and violence, which are now rampant in the camps and the surrounding areas.

Bangladesh has helped avoid a major regional crisis by sheltering more than one million Rohingya people, who fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar since August 2017. It was not an easy task for the government to provide food and shelter to this large number of refugees, yet we generously opened our borders. And the government has been working hard to ensure that these forcibly-displaced people can have a safe life in the refugee camps of Cox's Bazar, despite the fact that we have been facing serious financial, ecological and security challenges.

Four years have passed since Bangladesh signed a repatriation deal with Myanmar in November 2017. But the Myanmar government has hardly done anything for the Rohingyas' safe return, and the silence of the international community in this regard is also unfortunate. In 2018, the UNHCR and the UNDP signed a tripartite deal with Myanmar for creating conducive conditions for the Rohingyas' safe return. Sadly, the Myanmar government has yet to ensure that.

In the meantime, the government has built housing and other facilities to relocate the refugees from the squalid camps of Cox's Bazar to Bhashan Char, an island in Noakhali, to address issues such as the risk of landslides in the hilly areas of the camp site, drug peddling, human trafficking, gender-based violence, and conflicts between factions of the refugee communities in Cox's Bazar, as well as to address the environmental degradation in the Cox's Bazar refugee camp areas.

While our government continues to shelter the Rohingyas, it is extremely disheartening to note the silence of Myanmar as well as the international community regarding the issue of their repatriation. We hope that the world leaders will not only appreciate Bangladesh's efforts in this regard, but will also play a strong role to push Myanmar to start the repatriation process without further delay for the benefit of the entire region. Our prime minister has rightly said that, unless Myanmar takes back their own people ensuring their safety and dignity, "the security risks from the crisis will not just remain confined within our borders." We hope the world leaders will heed our prime minister's call.