Rohingya is seen after arriving on a boat in Bangladesh on September 14, 2017 in Shah Porir Dip, Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since August 2017, during the outbreak of violence in Rakhine State.
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Bangladesh hopes Southeast Asian nations will put pressure on Myanmar to repatriate displaced Rohingya and bring them home, according to the foreign minister.
AK Abdul Momen said Bangladesh bears the burden of Rohingya Muslims, who sought refuge in the South Asian country after a mass exodus due to the brutal repression of the Myanmar army in 2017.
The Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim minority in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. Although there have been large Rohingya migrations to Bangladesh since the 1970s, none have been as rapid and massive as the August 2017 exodus.
“Approximately 1.1 million persecuted Rohingya are now housed in Bangladesh,” Momen told CNBC’s Streets Signs Asia on Monday. “Our priority is for these persecuted Rohingya to return home for a decent living,” he said.
Bangladesh has taken the Rohingya for humanitarian reasons, but the South Asian nation is now “facing difficulties,” Momen said. He hopes that ASEAN member states – or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – will play a strong role in the next summit to get the military government in Myanmar to take back the refugees.
“Now that the government of Myanmar has been invited by ASEAN (to) the summit in Indonesia, this is good news. At least they will go there and then maybe they will be pressurized by ASEAN, hopefully they will take their people back.” , mentioned Momen said.
Myanmar is currently in a state of emergency, following a February 1 military coup that saw joint power overthrow the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Momen’s comments come as Myanmar’s military commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, attends the ASEAN summit in Indonesia on April 24. has killed 700 civilians so far and detained more than 3,000, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners.
Observers warned that Myanmar could be on the verge of becoming a “failed state” and that there must be a greater international effort by the world’s major powers to resolve the violence.
While Bangladesh’s foreign minister did not take a stand on the latest military coup, he stressed that his government wants stability to return to Myanmar.
“Bangladesh believes in democracy. And we want the legal system to be maintained,” Momen said, adding that his country does not support violence because it only leads to “more violence and uncertainty.”