Bangladesh border guards stop refugees

01 November 2017
Bangladesh border guards stop refugees
(File) This August 29, 2017 photo taken from Nykkhongchhari near the Bangladeshi town of Ukhiya shows a Bangladeshi border guard ordering Rohingya refugees to return to the Myanmar side of a small canal between the two countries. Photo: Emrul Kamal/AFP

Troops of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have prevented a group of around 5,000 Rohingyas from crossing over to Bangladesh, UN officials and journalists said Wednesday.
A UN official visiting the area told Mizzima that the BGB troops pushed back the Rohingyas twice on Tuesday and once on Wednesday morning when they tried to cross into Bangladesh at Anjumanpara.
"It seems the troops have instructions not to let any more Rohingyas cross into Bangladesh," the official said but insisted on anonymity.
More than 585,000 Rohingyas have already crossed into Bangladesh, severely straining its resources.
Dhaka is insisting on an early start to the process of sending them back to Myanmar, something that the country's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal insisted during his recent visit to Myanmar.
But a time frame on the repatriation has not yet been agreed so far.
The Department of State said Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Simon Henshaw has taken a delegation to Myanmar and Bangladesh on a six-day visit which began on Oct 29.
Deputy Assistant Secretary Scott Busby of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Tom Vajda of the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, and Office Director Patricia Mahoney of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs is accompanying the acting assistant secretary.