Porimol Palma

Rohingya repatriation would now depend on how the international community reacts to yesterday’s coup, experts have said.

It has been more than three years since nearly 750,000 Rohingyas, who faced brutal military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, took shelter in Bangladesh. Despite global pressure, including a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, the Rohingya repatriation did not happen.

The pandemic and Myanmar’s elections in November last year led to the delay in the joint meeting between the officials in Dhaka and Naypyidaw. However, early this year a tripartite meeting involving officials from Bangladesh, Myanmar and China was held, and Dhaka expressed optimism of beginning the repatriation in the second half of the year.

Now that the Myanmar military has taken control of the country and detained de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political leaders of the National League of Democracy (NLD), which had a landslide victory in the November polls, the question is “would it affect the repatriation of the Rohingyas?”

Some experts say the repatriation process may slow down, while others argue that Myanmar military, which led the “genocidal acts” against the Rohingyas, will face more international pressure. They all agree, however, that the Rohingya repatriation would depend on how the global community reacts to the coup.

“I think Rohingya repatriation process will slow down because the military government will be more involved in its administrative and internal issues,” said M Humayun Kabir, president at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute and a former ambassador.