Lauding Bangladesh for providing shelter to displaced Rohingya Muslims, India on Monday said it is committed to offering the fullest support for any mutually-acceptable solution that will enable earliest possible return of the refugees to their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and lead to life of dignity. Bangladesh is home to nearly a million Rohingya including 740,000 who fled a military crackdown in Rakhine state in August 2017 that the UN has called ethnic cleansing. Addressing a seminar in Dhaka on ”Bangladesh & India: A Promising Future”, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said India was deeply appreciative of the spirit of humanism that motivated Bangladesh to offer shelter to nearly one million displaced people. “And we fully recognise and sympathise with the enormous burden that you are facing. We are committed to offering the fullest support for any mutually-acceptable solution that will enable earliest possible return of displaced persons to their homes in Rakhine state and to life of dignity,” he said. “This should be done in a manner that is safe secure and sustainable,” Shringla said. Shringla said India has provided five tranches of aid to the camps in Cox’s Bazar area through the government of Bangladesh and are prepared to do more. Cox’s Bazar is the area where nearly a million Rohingya live in camps after many fled Myanmar. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has denied citizenship to Rohingya since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless. It does not recognise Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic group and insists they are Bangladeshi migrants living illegally in the country. Myanmarese President U Win Myint last week visited India during which the two sides signed 10 agreements with a focus on the socio-economic development of the southeast Asian nation”s conflict-torn Rakhine state.
