On Friday, Rohingya delegation team of 20 visited Myanmar. It was their first visit to their homeland after 6-long years and it seems they were disheartened.
Abu Sufian, was amongst one of the 20 refugees who visited Rakhine said to BDnews, “The Myanmar authorities have replaced entire villages with rows of buildings like camps for the Rohingya, everything has changed.”
Another Rohingya team member, Mohammad Salim from camp 26 said, “After many years, we have had the opportunity to visit Myanmar. Showed our camps there.” He said, ‘We asked why the camp? For whom? They said, ‘For you.’ We said, ‘If we don’t get security, we don’t get citizenship card, then what will happen?’ Then they said, ‘NVC (Nationality Verification) card should be taken.’ We said, ‘NVC card are for guests, we take NVC card means we are also like guests or guests (meaning foreigners). In this case, we will not be able to own any land, we will not get citizenship.’
Mohammad Salim also said, “We have demanded that we return our to our villages, then we will build houses in our land with our own money. Our last words are, we will not go back to Myanmar unless we are given security, citizenship and housing.”
Meanwhile, Maungdaw Township Administrator said that after the Rohingyas are taken back, each family will be given a house in the ‘model village’, land for farming, fertilizer, seeds, etc.
He also said that, the Rohingyas will have the opportunity to study up to the 10th standard. They can later study at Sittwe University. He also said that 150 Rohingyas will be taken in five days a week, 30 per day. It is to be noted that Bangladesh gave the list of 862 thousand Rohingya to Myanmar. Myanmar initially chose to take back about 70,000 Rohingya from that list. In the first phase, a pilot program to take back 1,400 Rohingyas was undertaken.
The Head of the Delegation is the Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC), Mizanur Rahman told reporters that, ‘We want to start repatriation.’
The delegation team left Teknaf (Bangladesh) for Myanmar at 10 am on Friday and returned at 5:50 PM.
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