In a current interview with DW, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A Ok Abdul Momen mentioned that authorities in Dhaka might present authorized paperwork to a number of the Rohingya that stay in Saudi Arabia.
The Muslim Rohingya are an ethnic minority originating in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. However, Myanmar refuses to acknowledge them as residents. For many years, the Rohingya have fled from persecution to different international locations, most of them to neighboring Bangladesh.
Almost 40 years in the past, Saudi Arabia took in tens of hundreds of Rohingya refugees who had been going through persecution in Myanmar. The Saudi authorities instructed Dhaka in September 2020 that it “would be helpful” if the refugees got Bangladeshi passports as the dominion “doesn’t keep stateless people.”
The Rohingya in Saudi Arabia don’t maintain a passport from any nation. Even the kids of the refugees who had been born in Saudi Arabia and communicate Arabic will not be supplied Saudi citizenship.
Bangladesh doesn’t acknowledge the Rohingya as its residents, subsequently specialists say that Foreign Minister Momen’s assertion that Dhaka was contemplating giving passports to some Rohingya in Saudi Arabia might put the South Asian nation on a backfoot in its repatriation talks with Myanmar.
A troublesome choice for Dhaka
“We have discussed it with Saudi authorities and assured them that we will renew passports of Rohingya that have traveled to Saudi Arabia from Bangladesh,” Momen instructed DW.
The international minister mentioned that many Rohingya bribed Bangladeshi officers to get the nation’s passports.
“In 2001, 2002 and 2006, many Rohingya traveled to Saudi Arabia with Bangladeshi passports. Some corrupt Bangladeshi officials issued them these documents,” Momen mentioned.
The international minister, nonetheless, mentioned that Dhaka won’t be accountable for the kids of those individuals.
“These Rohingya have not been in Bangladesh since the 1970s. Their children were born and brought up in other countries. They don’t know anything about Bangladesh. They were raised as Arabs,” Momen instructed DW, including that the Saudi authorities doesn’t need to deport all Rohingya.
“Those who have already acquired Saudi citizenship will stay there.”
Some 300,000 Rohingya have already acquired work allow in Saudi Arabia. Many of the 54,000 Rohingya that Riyadh desires to repatriate now both carried Bangladeshi passports once they traveled to Saudi Arabia, or they acquired them from Bangladeshi consulates within the Middle Eastern nation.
Who ought to take accountability for the Rohingya?
C R Abrar, government director of the Dhaka-based Refugee and Migratory Movements, instructed DW that if these individuals have Bangladeshi paperwork, Dhaka should take accountability for them.
But he condemned Riyadh for pressuring Bangladeshi authorities over their repatriation.
“Bangladesh, whose economy is not too strong, has shown a lot of courage to provide shelter to these people. Saudi Arabia should not pile more pressure on the country,” he mentioned.
Abrar stresses that Rohingya will not be financial migrants. “They are a persecuted community. Saudi Arabia should understand this.”
Implications for Bangladesh
The knowledgeable is of the view that if Bangladesh accepts taking again Rohingya from Saudi Arabia, it should weaken its Myanmar repatriation case.
“Myanmar may try to use it to its advantage and force Bangladesh to recognize more Rohingya refugees as its citizens,” Abrar mentioned.
Ali Riaz, a distinguished professor of political science at Illinois State University, says it’s a tough scenario for Bangladesh. He, nonetheless, believes that the Saudi difficulty won’t have an effect on Bangladesh’s negotiations with Myanmar.
“They are separate issues,” Riaz instructed DW. “Recognizing some Rohingya as citizens does not mean that Bangladesh accepts the entire ethnic group as their own.”
