Myanmar’s Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement U Win Myat Aye on Wednesday said their government needs two weeks to verify the first list of 8,032 refugees, sent by the Bangladesh government.
“We will take back the Rohingya refugees immediately after we complete the verification,” he was quoted by the Myanmar Times as saying.
“The verified list will be sent to the Bangladesh government. We will start the repatriation process after receiving green signal from Bangladesh.”
Aye also said the Myanmar government is ready to accept as many as 300 refugees every day until the repatriation is complete.
Myanmar’s Immigration Department said the country’s home affairs authorities will first check the list against their register.
Once cleared, immigration officers will check the documents of those Rohingya people who are on the list, according to the Myanmarese newspaper.
In November last year, Dhaka and Naypyidaw signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to start the process in January. However, the repatriation was delayed due to some technical and ground-level complexities.
On Tuesday, border authorities of the two neighbouring countries held a meeting in the office of Taung Pyo Letwe General Administration Department in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township to discuss the process.
Sources present at the meeting said, the participants also discussed issues of the Rohingya people stuck on no man’s land on the border.
Meanwhile, a statement of the Myanmar government’s Information Committee said necessary security arrangements are being made for those who want to return their home.
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