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The Financial Express

Myanmar crisis: Bangladesh PM to visit Rohingya refugee camps amid fresh influx

| Updated: October 22, 2017 02:51:21


Rohingya refugees wait for food near the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh on Wednesday last after crossing the Myanmar border. - Reuters photo Rohingya refugees wait for food near the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh on Wednesday last after crossing the Myanmar border. - Reuters photo

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will visit the refugee camps in the southeastern part of the country on Tuesday amid the influx of Rohingyas since fresh violence erupted in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

 

Hasina will be visiting the Kutupalang camp in Cox's Bazar, Deputy Press Secretary to the PM Ashraful Alam said, reports bdnews24.

 

Over the last few decades, almost half a million Rohingya Muslims have been living in two registered camps and makeshift settlements in bordering Cox's Bazar, fleeing persecution and communal violence.

 

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya people as its citizens, neither has it responded to Bangladesh's frequent calls to take back the refugees.

 

Attacks on a police camp in October last year sparked an influx of almost 87,000 refugees into Bangladesh. Fresh violence broke out on Aug 25 when insurgents attacked 30 police posts and an army base.

 

About 300,000 Rohingyas are said to have fled Rakhine and sought shelter over the border in Bangladesh in the weeks since the fresh violence.

 

As many as 400 people have been reported dead in fighting that has rocked the country's northwest, according to Myanmar officials.

 

Bangladesh has proposed creating “safe zones” run by aid groups for the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state to stop hundreds of thousands of refugees crossing into its territory.

 

Dhaka had earlier pitched a joint operation with Myanmar forces on the border to wipe out militant and extremist forces, but Naypyidaw has not responded.

 

In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, many consider the 1.1 million Rohingyas as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

 

Hasina said last week that Bangladesh was trying its best to support the refugees.

 

"We are also mounting pressure on Myanmar to take back their citizens," she said on Thursday while addressing a meeting of the ruling Awami League's executive body.

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