Rohingya delegation visits Myanmar amid latest repatriation plans

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A Rohingya refugee delegation has arrived in Myanmar to tour new facilities built for the revival of a long-stalled plan to return the persecuted minority to their homeland.

Bangladesh officials said on Friday that 20 Rohingya and seven officials, including a border guard officer, were visiting two model villages erected for the pilot return project.

“We departed from Teknaf jetty with 20 Rohingya members, including three women,” Bangladesh’s deputy refugee commissioner Mohammed Khalid Hossain told the AFP news agency.

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“They will see the various facilities created for the purpose of repatriation to Myanmar,” he said as their boat left the river port for neighbouring Maungdaw township in Rakhine state, Myanmar.

Bangladesh is home to about a million Rohingya, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar that is now subject to a UN genocide investigation.

Both countries signed an agreement to return the refugees later that year, but little progress has been made since, and the UN has repeatedly warned conditions were not right for their repatriation.