DHAKA: The head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, on Sunday called for a fast-tracked third-country resettlement of Rohingya Muslims living in the south Asian country, as a new wave of refugees flee escalating violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Around 8,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled across the border to Bangladesh in recent months as fighting intensifies between Myanmar’s ruling junta and the Arakan Army, a powerful ethnic militia drawn from the country’s Buddhist majority.

The new arrivals add to the more than one million Rohingya refugees already living in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, most of whom fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017. The Rohingya refugees have little hope of returning to their homeland, where they are largely denied citizenship and other basic rights.

The call to expedite resettlement efforts was made during a meeting with the International Organisation for Migra­tion (IOM), in which Yunus, Chief Adviser to the interim government, said the “resettlement process should be easy, regular, and smooth.”

Abdusattor Esoev, head of the IOM in Bangladesh, said the resettlement of Rohingya to third countries resumed in 2022 after a gap of 12 years, but has only gathered pace this year, a statement from the Chief Adviser’s office said.

Washington has reaffirmed its commitment to resettle thousands of Rohingya in the United States, but the process has not yet been accelerated, the statement said.

The recent surge in violence is the worst the Rohingya have faced since the 2017 Myanmar military-led campaign, which the United Nations described as having genocidal intent.

Bangladesh’s de facto foreign minister, Moham­mad Touhid Hossain, said last month that Bangladesh cannot accept more Rohingya refugees and called on India and other countries to take in more of those fleeing violence.

He also urged the international community to apply more pressure on the Arakan Army to cease its attacks on the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024