‘Continue pressure on Myanmar to repatriate the Rohingyas’

To mark the 3rd anniversary of the latest round of massive Rohingya exodus from Myanmar to Bangladesh, ActionAid Bangladesh in collaboration with the Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS), University of Dhaka and the Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), Brac University organised a two-day long international e-conference titled "Connecting the Rohingya Diaspora: Highlighting the Global Displacement."

The inaugural session of the conference started at 6pm today.

Manzoor Hasan OBE, executive director, CPJ, made the opening remarks in the session.

Masud bin Momen, foreign secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh was present in the conference as chief guest and Cherno Marenah, solicitor general and legal secretary, Ministry of Justice Government of The Republic of the Gambia, was present as the guest of honour.

"The topic of this conference is extremely important. By connecting the Rohingya diaspora living all over the world, we can learn how they can step in to fight the systematic persecution and injustice against the Rohingya people. To exert pressure on Myanmar and to ensure justice for the Rohingyas, the world needs to hear more from the Rohingya people. The Rohingya diaspora can serve as the voice of the refugees who fled from genocide and [are] now leading measurable lives in the refugee camps," said Cherno Marenah.

Foreign Secretary Masud bin Momen appealed to the international community to exert pressure on Myanmar to repatriate the Rohingya refugees.

"There is visible lack of political will and decisive action in the part of Myanmar government to improve the situation in Rakhine and to repatriate the forcibly displaced Rohingyas. International community should pressure the Myanmar government to start time bound repatriation programme, to allow civilian observers in Rakhine to monitor and guarantee security of the returnees and to ensure that Myanmar government does not erase the evidences of genocide and human rights violations," said Masud bin Momen.

He also added that if the repatriation attempt is delayed further the Rohingyas and the host community will be utterly frustrated and a humanitarian catastrophe will occur in the near future.

Dr Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of International Relations and director of CGS delivered a presentation on the conference.

"Altogether around 1,000 national and international stakeholders will be connected in the two-day conference via Zoom platform and more thousands via social media. In the closing ceremony of the two-day conference a Dhaka Declaration-II (2020) will be presented and shared among the stakeholders for the way forward for the Rohingya issue toward justice," says Dr Imtiaz.

Farah Kabir, country director, ActionAid Bangladesh, delivered a vote of thanks to all the participants at the end of the inaugural session.