2nd Dhaka Declaration: Ensure safe, dignified, informed and voluntary repatriation of the Rohingya people

The two-day International e-conference on "Connecting the Rohingya Diaspora: Highlighting the Global Displacement" ended at 10:00pm on August 26 with the 2nd Dhaka Declaration, 2020.

In this 15-point declaration, participants of the e-conference appealed to the international community to come forward to ensure safe, dignified, informed and voluntary repatriation of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees. 

The participants demanded in the declaration that the Rohingya refugee crisis should be solved in a sustainable way and with a regional approach.

The declaration thus appealed to the allies of Myanmar, particularly ASEAN countries, to compel Myanmar to stop persecution against the Rohingyas once and for all.

The participants also asked for sufficient humanitarian assistance to the refugees and all sorts of support to ensure protection and rights of all Rohingya people.

The Dhaka Declaration denounced all sorts of latent and manifested acts of genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minority of Myanmar, condemned persecution by the Myanmar state authority and the apathy of the Myanmar government and regional government towards the sufferings of Rohingya people.

The declaration also recognised four provisional measures on the Myanmar government as per the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v Myanmar) case in January 2020.

The provisions included that the government of Myanmar has to prevent genocidal acts and crimes, ensure that the military and other security forces do not commit genocide, preserve evidence of genocidal acts and crimes, report back on its compliance within four months, and then every six months afterwards.

The e-conference connected thousands of Rohingya people scattered all over the world and provided a platform to raise their voice against injustice and persecution by Myanmar government.

The Dhaka declaration thus urged the Rohingya diaspora to develop a strong network creating a virtual diaspora space to raise a strong voice in the international arena for demanding their due rights from Myanmar.

The closing day of the conference was attended by Laetitia van den Assum, former Dutch ambassador to the Netherlands; Lilianne Fan, Head, Rohingya Working Group, Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, Malaysia; and M ShahidulHaque, former Foreign Secretary to the Government of Bangladesh and Senior Fellow of North South University.

The conference was organised on the occasion of the third anniversary of the massive influx of Rohingya into Bangladesh by ActionAid Bangladesh in association with the Center for Genocide Studies, Dhaka University and the Center for Peace and Justice, BRAC University.