Burmese minister will visit the Rohingya refugee camps

The first visit since the violence broke out. The number of Rohingya in refugee camps continues to grow. The trip is scheduled for April 11 or 12, but the program has yet to be confirmed. Still no action on refugee repatriation agreement.

Naypyitaw (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Myanmar's social welfare, relief and resettlement minister Win Myat Aye, will visit the refugee camps of Rohingya in Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry reported yesterday.

Scheduled for April 11 or 12, the trip does not yet have a defined program. It is the first visit to refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh by a Myanmar official since the violence in Rakhine exploded in the last two years. This has led to the flight hundreds of thousands of members of the Islamic minority, welcomed in the neighboring country.

In Bangladesh, the number of refugees continues to grow, and is now estimated at around 750 thousand, including about 300 thousand Rohingya who fled in the context of previous incidents of ethnic violence.

Win Myat Ayet is the deputy head of the task force led by Aung San Suu Kyi for the resolution of the crisis in the State of Rakhine, and one of the officials overseeing the Rohingya repatriation agreement.

The two countries reached an agreement last November to begin the voluntary repatriation of refugees who can prove they had lived in Rakhine since before October 9, 2016, when an ARSA attack triggered ethnic violence. However, the process has not yet begun, while the Rohingya, subject to restrictions on movement in Myanmar, continue to cross the border. On March 15, Myanmar informed Bangladesh that it would repatriate less than 400 Rohingya refugees out of over 8,000 who applied to return to the western state of Rakhine.

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• rohingya
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• rakhine
• crisis in rakhine