Verification process for refugees to launch soon

September 27, 2017

The government will begin a national verification process soon for refugees who fled Rakhine to Bangladesh, said Union Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Dr Win Myat Aye yesterday.

“We will carry out the verification process at Taungpyo Latwe Village for those who return by road and at Naguya Village for those who return by water,” told the Union Minister at the meeting with reporters following a third meeting of the committee on implementing recommendations on Rakhine State in Nay Pyi Taw.

“After the verification process, the refugees will be settled at Dargyizar Village. These are our current plans,” he added. The National Verification Process will be carried out based on the principles to which both Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in 1993, said the Union Minister in his capacity as the chairman of the committee. Union Minister U Kyaw Tint Swe will leave for Bangladesh in the near future to hold talks with Bangladesh authorities over the national verification process. In some Muslim communities in northern Rakhine, their leaders have decided that they are not to join in the previous verification process.

“We would appreciate it if all friends could persuade them to join in the process because they have nothing to lose by it,” said State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in her speech at the September-19 diplomatic briefing in Nay Pyi Taw.

She also said the government wanted to find out why the exodus of Muslims was happening in northern Rakhine though there have been no armed clashes and there have been no security operations since 5 September.

“It is very little known that the great majority of Muslims in the Rakhine State have not joined the exodus.

More than 50 percent of the villages of Muslims are intact. They are as they were before the attacks took place. We would like to know why,” said the State Counsellor.

Kyaw Thu Htet

Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar