BANGKOK: Around 25,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority group have left camps for displaced people in western Myanmar and returned to the communities they fled during sectarian violence in 2012, the United Nations said on Monday.

The number of people still in camps has fallen to around 120,000 from 145,000 in Rakhine State, Vivian Tan, regional spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, said.

The move will bolster optimism among ethnic communities in Myanmar that their situation may improve under the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD won a landslide electoral win in November and is forming a government to take power on April 1.

The majority of Rohingya who have left the camps have rebuilt houses in their place of origin, Tan said in an e-mailed statement. The move out of the camps started in March 2015 in a process led by the Myanmar government, she added.

“These movements are a positive step towards ending displacement, cutting humanitarian dependency as well as restoring a degree of normality and dignity to people’s lives,” she said.

The Rohingya still faced challenges due to lack of citizenship and related restrictions, she said. The number of camps for displaced people has fallen to 40, down from 67, she added.

Persecution and poverty led thousands more Rohingya to flee Myanmar in the wake of the violence between Buddhists and Muslims there four years ago. Many of them were smuggled or trafficked to Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2016