Rohingya delegation leaves for Rakhine to monitor repatriation arrangements

A 27-member delegation including 20 Rohingyas left for Myanmar’s Rakhine on Friday morning to monitor the arrangements made by the Myanmar government ahead of a planned repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

The delegation left Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf upazila on a speed boat through the Naf River around 9am on Friday. There are 20 Rohingyas, including three women, a translator and six Bangladeshi officials of different departments. A 16-member BGB team accompanied them to ensure security.

Md Shamsud Douza, the additional refugee relief and repatriation commissioner said the delegation will monitor Myanmar's repatriation arrangement and the situation in Rakhine’s Maungdaw town.

“They’ll visit the place where the Rohingya people will live following their repatriation,” he said.

The delegation will be back to Tekhnaf by the evening, he added.

Earlier, a list of more than 800,000 Rohingyas was sent to Myanmar from the Bangladesh government. The country had identified about 1,140 people in the first phase as a pilot project to repatriate from the list.

Later, Myanmar voiced objections regarding 429 individuals on the list.

On March 15, a 19-member technical team came to Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf, and met 480 members of 177 Rohingya families and returned to Myanmar.