More than 270,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have been biometrically registered and received identity cards, the first time many of them have had legal identification, through a UNHCR and government of Bangladesh program.
UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said in a briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva that the organizations have used the Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS) to register 270,348 out of more than 900,000 refugees in crowded settlements in the Cox’s Bazar district. After registering their fingerprints and iris scans, refugees receive a photo-ID card with biographic information, indicating Myanmar as their country of origin. More than 450 staff at six locations are registering over 4,000 refugees a day, in hopes of completing the registration process this year.
The UN Refugee Agency and the government of Bangladesh are scaling up biometric registration of Rohingya refugees fleeing the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar in order to provide them with biometric ID cards.
The UNHCR announced the efforts after a visit by Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Volker Türk and other agency representatives to the world’s largest refugee settlement, Kutupalong, and meeting with Bengali government officials. Türk lauded efforts by Bangladesh’s government and host communities to support the refugees.
FIND BIOMETRICS GLOBAL IDENTY MANAGEMNET Posted on March 26, 2019
After a high-level tour of refugee centers in Bangladesh, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is more convinced than ever of the importance of biometric IDs for helping displaced people.
The visit was conducted by Volker Türk, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the United Nations’ refugee agency, who visited Bangladesh to assess the country’s situation with respect to its many Rohingya muslim refugees, who have fled neighboring Myanmar in the wake of genocidal persecution.
