Bangladesh announces plan at UN to safeguard persecuted Rohingya

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday unveiled a seven-point plan to safeguard the Rohingya at a high-level conference organized by the UN on the persecuted Muslim minority.

“Eight years since the genocide began, the plight of the Rohingya continues. Initiatives to end the crisis are lacking. International funding faces alarming shortfalls,” he said at the opening session of the high-level conference on the situation of the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar held at UN headquarters in New York.

Yunus made the appeal to shine the spotlight anew, as attention to the plight of the Rohingya has been dwindling due to other high-profile crises.

“The world cannot keep the Rohingya waiting any longer from returning home,” added Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Bangladesh now has approximately 1.3 million forcibly displaced Rohingya in its coastal Cox's Bazar district, with the majority having fled neighboring Myanmar in 2017 following a military crackdown in Rakhine state.

According to Yunus' office, the 1.3 million includes some 150,000 Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh over the past 18 months, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation.

As the Rohingya crisis originated in Myanmar, its solution lies there, he said.

“Bangladesh is a victim of the crisis. We are forced to bear huge financial, social, and environmental costs. Criminal activities, including narco-flows into Bangladesh through Rakhine, threaten our social fabric.”

Yunus’s seven-point proposal includes:

- Devise a practical roadmap for safe and dignified repatriation of the Rohingya with reasonable stabilization of Rakhine state; exert effective pressure on Myanmar and the Arakan Army to end violence against the Rohingya and start their sustainable repatriation, beginning with those who recently arrived in Bangladesh, and those who are internally displaced.

- Mobilize international support to stabilize Rakhine and place an international civilian presence to monitor stabilization. Support confidence-building measures for sustainable integration of the Rohingya in Rakhine society and governance.

- Mobilize donors’ contributions to fully fund a joint response plan, pursue accountability and restorative justice, and dismantle the narco-economy and combat transboundary crimes.

“Today, let us pledge to act together to resolve the crisis once and for all,” Yunus urged.