"Rohingya refugee crisis is a time bomb that must be quickly defused to avoid any future flare-up"

The Daily Star
August 05, 2019

Dr. Shamsul Bari, a former Director of UNHCR, talks to The Daily Star about the Rohingya refugee crisis, its local, regional and global implications and the possible solutions to the crisis.

 

Rohingya refugees walk towards the Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh after crossing the Bangladesh- Myanmar border. AFP File Photo 

 

Based on your experience in dealing with refugees the world over, how would you categorise the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh?

During my long career with UNHCR, I had the opportunity to deal with refugee problems all over the world. In fact, the influx of Rohingyas into Bangladesh in 1978 was one of the first refugee groups I dealt with at the UNHCR, which I joined the same year. However, compared to that group of around 250,000 refugees, most of whom went back, and a similar number of Rohingya refugees who came in the early 1990s, who too largely went back, and a lesser number who came in 2012 and drew international attention for their desperate efforts to travel to Malaysia and other Asean countries in rickety boats, the influx of August 2017 was of a very different nature and on a much larger scale.
Dr. Shamsul Bari