Bangladesh wants the United Nations’ intervention for sending back the Myanmar refugees, who fled the country in the wake of violence in Rakhine state.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made the call on Wednesday during a meeting with outgoing UN Resident Coordinator Robert Watkins at her office in Dhaka.
Almost half a million Rohingya Muslims have been living in two registered camps and makeshift settlements in Bangladesh’s Cox's Bazar bordering Myanmar over the last few decades, fleeing persecution and communal violence.
Myanmar did not respond to Bangladesh's calls to take them back and was reluctant to recognise them as citizens.
Attacks on a police camp in October last year sparked an influx of refugees into Bangladesh. Fresh violence broke out on August 25 this year when insurgents attacked 30 police posts and an army base.
As many as 400 people have been reported dead in fighting that has rocked the country's northwest, according to Myanmar officials.
Watkins told Hasina that according to their calculations nearly 126,000 people have fled violence in Myanmar across the border into Bangladesh until Wednesday. – bdnews24.com
