Dhaka 8 Aug : Beijing has assured Dhaka of assistance in repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in Bangladeshi camps after fleeing the violence and persecutors in Myanmar, with China building 3000 homes to house the returnees.Bangladesh has hosted over 1 million Rohingya Muslims, reports dpa news agency.
The number of people crossing the border following Myanmar began an attack by military on minorities in 2017.
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told a news conference he had a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Dhaka on Sunday.
Momen said that the Chinese minister told the gathering that his country has already built 3,000 homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state for prospective returnees.
“China will also provide an initial food aid program for them when they (the refugees) have returned,” Momen said.
“We should be thankful to (China) for agreeing to do so,” the Minister said and added that verification of the identity of refugees was being conducted.
Myanmar has so far confirmed the identity of approximately 58,000 people.
Bangladesh has provided biometric information of around 800,000.refugees in the camps in the south-eastern part of Cox’s Bazar, according to officials.
Yi Yi, who was in Dhaka for two days on Saturday but was not present at the news briefing since he was leaving Dhaka for Ulaanbaatar shortly after the conference on Sunday.
“China has made progress in solving the Rohingya crisis, and we’re looking for the situation to be resolved,” said Bangladesh’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shahriar Alam.
After two failed repatriation attempts in 2019and 2020, China hosted the hosting of a meeting with Bangladesh as well as Myanmar to reach a solution in the month of January in 2021.
Negotiations were put on hold for more than a year due the pandemic Covid-19.
Repatriation efforts failed due to refugees’ lack of confidence in Myanmar’s Myanmar government.
