UN Human Rights Chief Urges Bangladesh To Suspend Plans To Repatriate Rohingyas To Myanmar

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has urged the Bangladeshi authorities to suspend their plans to repatriate 2,200 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, where their lives could be at risk.

GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th November, 2018) UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has urged the Bangladeshi authorities to suspend their plans to repatriate 2,200 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, where their lives could be at risk.

In December, Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on a plan to repatriate Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar's Rakhine state. The process is scheduled to start on Thursday. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, has also called on Bangladesh to postpone its plans to expel refugees, since Myanmar had not yet guaranteed their safety.

"We are witnessing terror and panic among those Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar who are at imminent risk of being returned to Myanmar against their will. Forcibly expelling or returning refugees and asylum seekers to their home country would be a clear violation of the core legal principle of non-refoulement, which forbids repatriation where there are threats of persecution or serious risks to the life and physical integrity or liberty of the individuals," Bachelet said.

Human rights were still being violated in Myanmar, she stressed, adding that her office, the OHCHR, had been receiving reports of killings, disappearances, extrajudicial arrests, as well as restrictions on movement, education and healthcare for Rohingyas who had remained in Rakhine state.

According to the OHCHR, about 130,000 internally displaced persons, many of whom are Rohingya, remain in temporary camps in the central part of the state. As such, many refugees who are currently in Bangladesh, specifically the city of Cox's Bazar, do not want to return to Myanmar, with some even threatening to commit suicide if subjected to forced repatriation.

Bachelet called on Myanmar's authorities to demonstrate the seriousness of their intentions by creating conditions suitable for refugees to return, and solving the main problems that led to the crisis, specifically the systematic discrimination and harassment of the Rohingya.

The OHCHR chief also called on the Bangladeshi authorities to ensure that the repatriation of Rohingya is voluntary, safe and transparent, adding that it should be carried out only when the necessary conditions are created.

Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Myanmar, have been fleeing their homes to avoid waves of violence that followed the government's deployment of police and military units in response to an attack by Rohingya insurgents on security posts in the Rakhine State on August 25, 2017. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly 700,000 Rohingyas have left the country for Bangladesh since last August.