Dhaka: India on Sunday said that Myanmar should take back the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh following a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is visiting Bangladesh, also discussed the situation with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“India is deeply concerned over the spate of violence in Rakhine state of Myanmar,” Sushma Swaraj said at a joint address to the media along with her Bangladeshi counterpart Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali following the fourth India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) meeting here.
“We have urged the situation be handled with restraint, keeping in mind the people’s welfare,” Swaraj said.
Without naming the Rohingyas, she said it was clear that “normalcy will be restored only with the return of the displaced persons to Rakhine state”.
According to the latest figures issued by the UN office in Bangladesh, over 600,000 refugees have entered the country since August 25 after the Myanmarese Army’s crackdown on the minority Rohingya community following a series of attacks on security personnel in Rakhine.
The Rohingyas do not have citizenship in Myanmar and are sparingly given refugee status in Bangladesh.
“In our view, the only long-term solution to the situation is rapid socio-economic and infrastructure development that will have a positive impact on all the communities living in the state,” Swaraj said. (IANS)
