Myanmar verified 18,629 displaced persons submitted by Bangladesh, MoFA says

16 Jul 2019

Nay Yaung Min | DMG

16 July, Sittwe

Myanmar has verified 18,629 names from the list of 22,432 persons, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 15 July. Bangladeshi authorities sent the list of displaced people to Myanmar officials. The list contains names of people who fled from violence in the Maungdaw region.

The Bangladesh government provided Myanmar delegations with the list of displaced persons at the third meeting of the Joint Working Group on the repatriation of verified displaced persons from Bangladesh held in Dhaka in October last year.

The ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population conducted the verification process up to 10 July. To make a smooth and swift resettlement process for returnees, they are listed by village. Part of the process is now complete and the verified list of 3450 returnees has been addressed to Dhaka, MoFA said on 11 July.

Myanmar security forces cracked down the ARSA in 2017 when the terrorist group attacked police outposts in Maungdaw region, forcing over 700,000 Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, the UN and international organizations said.

After the Naypyidaw government and Dhaka inked an agreement to receive displaced Muslims who fled to Bangladesh, Myanmar has prepared to start the repatriation process on 15 November in 2018, but no one had returned on that day.