Around 8,000 Rohingyas had recently crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing armed conflict in Myanmar鈥檚 Rakhine state, foreign affairs adviser Md Touhid Hossain said on Tuesday.
鈥業 have information that around 8,000 Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh. We will have a serious discussion at the cabinet within the next 2-3 days [regarding this],鈥� he told reporters at the foreign ministry.
The adviser said that Bangladesh had decided, in principle, not to shelter any more forcibly displaced Rohingyas.
While expressing sympathy for the persecuted Rohingya, he stressed that Bangladesh no longer had the capacity to provide humanitarian shelter to additional refugees.
Touhid noted that the border with Myanmar had been sealed, but acknowledged the difficulty of completely securing the frontier.
鈥業t is not fully possible to seal the border,鈥� he said, adding, 鈥榯he government will make efforts to prevent further entry of Rohingyas.鈥�
He said that he would have a meeting with the home affairs adviser in the next two days to discuss measures.
Addressing questions on repatriation, Touhid suggested the need for a communication channel with the Arakan Army, the rebel group that currently controls most of Rakhine state, to facilitate the return of the Rohingyas.
鈥業 think this is the way forward, but we have to assess how much can be done at the state level,鈥� he said.
Since August 25 in 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting over million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox鈥檚 Bazar and most of them arrived there after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a 鈥榯extbook example of ethnic cleansing鈥� and other rights groups dubbed it as 鈥榞enocide鈥�.
In the last seven years, not a single Rohingya went back home.
Myanmar agreed to take them back, but repatriation attempts failed twice due to trust deficit among the Rohingyas about their safety and security in Rakhine state.
