Rohingyas must go home in Myanmar, PM tells UN rights chief

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday reiterated her call to Myanmar to take back home the country's more than one million Rohingya nationals from their temporary shelter in Bangladesh.

“The Rohingyas are the nationals of Myanmar and they have to be taken back,” the prime minister told the visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet who called on her at her official residence Ganobhaban.

PM’s press secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed the media after the meeting.

He quoted the PM as telling the UN rights chief that Myanmar neither refuses that Rohingyas are not their nationals, nor is taking them back to their homeland.

Bachelet, a former president of Chile, proposed to increase opportunities for education and work for the Rohingya nationals sheltered in Bangladesh.

In reply, the Prime Minister said such initiatives will not be possible in Coxs’ Bazar, according to the press secretary.

She, however, informed the visiting UN High Commissioner that such steps can be taken at Bhashanchar where more than 20 thousand rohingyas have been shifted already to provide them with better basic facilities.

They both discussed various issues including Russia-Ukraine war, Rohingya crisis, climate change and women empowerment, said the press secretary.

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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh had witnessed gross violation of human rights during the long military regimes after 1975 carnage.

"We're even barred from seeking justice," she said while UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet paid a courtesy call on her at her official Ganabhaban residence here.

PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed the newsmen after the meeting.

The premier said Father of the Nation and then President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members were brutally assassinated on August 15 in 1975.

She added that she and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana survived the 1975 massacre as they were abroad at that time.

Sheikh Hasina said the then military backed government had enacted Indemnity Ordinance to stop trial of those killings.

After returning to country from forced exile, she said they were barred from seeking justice due to that ordinance.

She said the then military government even rehabilitated killers of Bangabandhu and war criminals in politics.

Bachelet, who was president of Chili for two times, said her family also had to suffer inhuman torture like Bangladesh Prime Minister when an oppressive government was in power in her country.

The UN high commissioner said she was "deeply moved" after visiting the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum where the Father of the Nation with most of his family members were brutally killed on August 15, 1975.

During the meeting, they discussed the current world issues and agreed that the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war, sanctions and counter sanctions have created crisis across the globe.