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Rohingya to stay in temporary houses on return to Myanmar, Bangladesh official says

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The Kutupalong refugee camp for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh. Photo: AP

Rohingya refugees who return to Myanmar following a Bangladesh-Myanmar repatriation agreement will initially have to live in temporary shelters or camps, Dhaka said on Saturday.

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“Primarily they will be kept at temporary shelters or arrangements for a limited time,” Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali told reporters in the capital Dhaka.

The United Nations says 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August and now live in squalor in the world’s largest refugee camp after a military crackdown in Myanmar that the UN and Washington have called “ethnic cleansing”.

Rohingya Muslim children playing soccer at Kutupalong refugee camp. Photo: AP
Rohingya Muslim children playing soccer at Kutupalong refugee camp. Photo: AP

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed the repatriation agreement on Thursday, which would pave the way for an “earliest return” of the Rohingya refugees, according to the deal, which Dhaka released on Saturday.

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Under the agreement, Myanmar “would restore normalcy in Northern Rakhine [state] and to encourage those who had left Myanmar to return voluntarily and safely to their own households” or “to a safe and secure place nearest to it of their choice”.

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