DHAKA — UN rights chief
Michelle Bachelet
said Wednesday that it remained unsafe for Rohingya refugees to return to their
homes in Myanmar, nearly five years after a crackdown there sparked an exodus
to neighboring Bangladesh.
اضافة اعلان
Nearly a million members of the mostly Muslim
minority live in a sprawling and squalid patchwork of refugee settlements near
Bangladesh’s southern coast.
Most fled their homes after a 2017 Myanmar army
offensive that is now subject to a landmark genocide case at the UN’s top
court.
Five years later, the refugees refuse to go back
without guarantees for their safety and rights in Myanmar, which is now ruled
by a military junta after the ouster of its civilian government last year.
Bachelet met with
Rohingya community members during
a tour of the camps on Tuesday and said they had expressed “resounding hope”
that they would be able to go back to their homes.
“Unfortunately the current situation across the
border means that the conditions are not right for returns,” Bachelet told
reporters in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
“Repatriation must always be conducted in a
voluntary and dignified manner, only when safe and sustainable conditions exist
in Myanmar.”
Bangladesh has become increasingly impatient with
the presence of its huge refugee population, and Bachelet said she was
concerned about “increasing anti-Rohingya rhetoric” and scapegoating of the
community.
She added that many refugees were fearful for their
safety due to the activity of armed groups and criminal gangs.
Security has been a constant issue in the camps,
with scores of killings, kidnappings and police dragnets targeting drug
trafficking networks.
Two Rohingya community leaders were shot dead
earlier this month, allegedly by an insurgent group active in the camps that
has been accused of murdering political opponents.
Bachelet was on a four-day visit to Bangladesh
before her term as UN high commissioner for human rights ends later this month.
While touring the camps on Tuesday, she urged the
international community to continue to support the Rohingya despite heightened
global focus on more recent crises.
She added that
the Russian invasion of Ukraine was being keenly felt among the Rohingya, with
global food prices soaring and driving up the costs of supporting a population
dependent on humanitarian aid.
“I would insist that the international community
don’t abandon the Rohingyas and continue supporting and even looking at if they
can scale up and support, because of the consequences of the war,” she said.
‘Serious
allegations’
Bachelet is the first
UN rights chief to visit Bangladesh and her trip included meetings with local
activists to discuss accusations of gross abuses by security forces, including
extrajudicial killings.
Campaigners say that under Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina, the country’s security forces have killed thousands of people in staged
shootouts, while hundreds of others have disappeared.
“I raised my deep concern about these serious
allegations with government ministers and highlighted the need for an
impartial, independent and transparent investigation into these allegations,”
Bachelet told reporters.
In December, the US imposed sanctions on the
country’s elite Rapid Action Battalion police force as well as seven top
security officers, including the national police chief, over allegations of
gross human rights violations.
The government denies the accusations of
disappearances and extrajudicial killings, with one minister saying that some
of those who went missing had in fact fled
Bangladesh.
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