Myanmar says 1st camp for Rohingya will be ready next week
BANGKOK — A top Myanmar official said Monday that a camp to house Rohingya Muslim and Hindu refugees who return from Bangladesh will be ready by its promised deadline next week.
More than 650,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar’s military launched a brutal crackdown in August following attacks on police posts by a militant group. Though Myanmar’s army claimed it was a clearance operation against the terrorists, the United Nations, United States and others have said the operations were “ethnic cleansing” to remove the Rohingya from the country.
Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement in November to repatriate Rohingya and set up a working group last month to oversee the repatriation of people who had fled violence in the northern part of Rakhine state in western Myanmar.
Win Myat Aye, the minister of social welfare, relief and resettlement, said Myanmar was hosting a one-day meeting Monday with Bangladesh officials in the capital Naypyitaw to discuss the logistics of how many Rohingya will be allowed into Myanmar and how they will be scrutinized to be placed in the camps.