DHAKA: Bangladesh on Wednesday sought international assistance to help find a new home for thousands of refugees from Myanmar, saying it couldn’t afford to keep them any longer.

Some 21,000 Rohingya Muslims from mainly Buddhist Myanmar have been living in two camps in Cox’s Bazar district, 450 kilometres southeast of Dhaka, for more than a decade.

They were among hundreds of thousands of minority Rohingyas who fled the west Myanmar region of Arakan in early 1992 to escape persecution by the military government.

Bangladesh’s Food and Disaster Management Minister Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf said he had discussed the refugee problem with visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migrations, Ellen R. Sauerbrey.

“We have urged the United States and the United Nations to try to relocate the Myanmar refugees in a third country,” Yusuf told reporters.—Reuters