The Malaysian authorities have said Myanmar has agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya refugees from their country. Such an initiative from a country in the middle of a civil war is being seen as a rare event.
According to local media reports, Malaysia’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, said on Wednesday: “People ask why we are not sending the Rohingya back. Send them back where? Myanmar has been refusing to accept them all this time.”
Anwar Ibrahim then said: “Now, because of good relations, Myanmar has agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya.” More than 2 lakh 15 thousand registered refugees and asylum seekers are currently living in Malaysia. According to the UN refugee agency, more than 1 lakh 26 thousand of them are Rohingya.
A few days before Anwar Ibrahim announced the repatriation, the Malaysian authorities detained more than 100 Rohingya from outside the UN refugee agency’s office in Kuala Lumpur. An organisation working on their rights said those people had gone to the refugee agency’s office to seek shelter in the face of a threat of eviction from a slum in the state of Penang.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report