RADIO FREE ASIA
2019-03-07
Rohingya refugees collect drinking water at the Shalbagan refugee camp in Teknaf, Bangladesh, March 5, 2019.
2019-03-07
Reuters
China has not offered Rohingya refugees
money to repatriate to Myanmar, a Chinese Embassy attaché in Dhaka told
BenarNews, after the news outlet reported that a delegation of officials
from Beijing had promised refugee families up to U.S. $6,000 each if
they returned to Rakhine state.
The embassy official was asked to comment
on a video posted online by a Rohingya NGO that showed Chinese delegates
meeting with refugees in southeastern Bangladesh, and offering families
money to return to their homeland. Bangladeshi officials and Rohingya
leaders confirmed the meeting and the offer to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, on Tuesday.
“I didn't see the video so I cannot say
whether there’s Chinese official[s],” political attaché Vera Hu said in
an email response to BenarNews.
However, she clarified, “China never offers money to Rohingya people for them to go back.”
“It is Myanmar government that would offer
the money to Rohingya families who don’t want to accept the houses
built by Myanmar in Rakhine, as a fund to rebuild their homes by
themselves,” she said.
On Thursday, BenarNews could not confirm
Hu’s statement. Win Myat Aye, chief of Myanmar’s Union Enterprise for
Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine, Aung
Tun Thet, a member of Myanmar’s Rakhine inquiry commission, and a
foreign ministry spokesman did not immediately return calls from the
Yangon office of RFA.
The video of the Chinese delegation was
taken when Sun Gouxiang, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs,
arrived at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar on March 3. During
his visit, the diplomat met with 29 refugees, including 14 women.
A Bangladeshi official and Rohingya
leaders who attended the meeting confirmed to BenarNews that the
delegation had offered each family up to U.S. $6,000 to help the
refugees rebuild their homes in Rakhine state.
“They asked us whether we would go back if
they gave us five thousand to six thousand dollars,” Syed Ullah,
secretary-general of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human
Rights (ARSPH), an NGO, told BenarNews.
At least 200,000 homes would be
constructed in Myanmar to accommodate the returning refugees, the
Bangladesh official, who requested anonymity, told BenarNews.
“The Chinese government offered them the
money, so that each Rohingya family can build their own houses when they
go back,” he said.
About 730,000 Rohingya fled their homes in
Rakhine and crossed into Bangladesh at the height of a brutal crackdown
launched by the Myanmar military in response to attacks by Rohingya
insurgents on security posts in August 2017. The United Nations and the
United States described the killings that took place during the military
counter-offensive as “ethnic cleansing.”
Last week, Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told a U.N. Security Council meeting that the refugee crisis had gone from “bad to worse” and said Dhaka would no longer be able to take in refugees from Myanmar.
Last week, Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told a U.N. Security Council meeting that the refugee crisis had gone from “bad to worse” and said Dhaka would no longer be able to take in refugees from Myanmar.
Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
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