Bangladesh on Monday sent a high-level delegation to Myanmar for talks on the deepening Rohingya crisis as Dhaka sought to increase pressure on Naypyidaw to take back 600,000 members of the minority Muslim community who have fled Rakhine state to escape persecution.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan is leading the 12-member delegation comprising chiefs of paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), coastguard, police and several senior officials. Mr. Khan did not speak to the media before the departure but a Home Ministry spokesman told PTI that the delegation left for Myanmar this afternoon.
The minister earlier had aid the “quick repatriation of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas is the main agenda” of the visit. More than 600,000 people from the Muslim minority group have fled violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state since August, according to U.N. estimates.
Bangladesh accused Myanmar of spearheading a violent depopulation campaign to eliminate Rohingyas by branding them as so-called “Islamist terrorists”.
The visit was planned last month when Myanmar’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi sent to Dhaka a senior representative for talks amid mounting global outrage and agreed in principle to take back the victims of forced exodus.