Bangladesh calls Rohingya arrivals ‘untenable’ as thousands enter daily

Geneva, October 24
Nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled violence in Myanmar, an “untenable situation” for neighbour Bangladesh, the country’s UN envoy said on Monday, calling on Myanmar to let them return.
About 6,00,000 people have crossed the border since August 25, when insurgent attacks on security posts were met by a ferocious counter-offensive by the Myanmar army in Rakhine state which the UN has called ethnic cleansing.
“This is the biggest exodus from a single country since the Rwandan genocide in 1994,” Shameem Ahsan, Bangladesh’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told a UN pledging conference. “Despite claims to the contrary, violence in Rakhine state has not stopped. Thousands still enter on a daily basis,” he said.
Bangladesh’s Interior Minister was in Yangon on Monday for talks to find a “durable solution”, Ahsan said. But Myanmar continued to issue “propaganda projecting the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh”, Ahsan said, adding: “This blatant denial of the ethnic identity of the Rohingya remains a stumbling block.”
Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be stateless, although they trace their families’ presence in the country for generations.