Bangladesh is ready to take back all its trafficked victims stranded in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia within a month, said Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque.
Shahidul made the statement Thursday at the Bangkok conference where Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to address the root causes of a migrant exodus from their shores.
But Myanmar's delegate to the talks on Southeast Asia's migrant crisis rebuked the UN's refugee agency for calling on the country to recognise the Muslim Rohingya minority as citizens to stem their exodus from its shores, reports AFP.
According to various preliminary estimates, there are roughly 30-35% of Bangladeshis among the victims, said the foreign secretary.
“We will complete verification of these people within the shortest possible time and repatriate them to Bangladesh preferably within a month or so,” he said.
The conference was organised by Thailand. A total of 17 countries including Myanmar, the USA, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia attended it.
Bangladesh expressed its readiness to join any regional or global effort to address human trafficking by sea in the Indian Ocean region in an integrated and comprehensive manner, the foreign secretary said.
“We are talking about human beings who are victims or potential victims. They deserve our compassion. Our collective endeavour should be to protect their lives, alleviate their sufferings and uphold their dignity,” he said, adding that to this end, Bangladesh stands ready to join any regional or global effort.
Southeast Asia's migrant scandal began to unfurl at the start of this month after a Thai crackdown on people smuggling threw the multi-million dollar industry into disarray, reports AFP.
It led gangmasters to abandon their victims on land and at sea, and images of stick-thin, dazed migrants trapped on boats or stumbling onto shores and out of forests shocked the world, heaping pressure on Southeast Asian nations to act.
The majority of the migrants are Rohinyga Muslims, who are pariahs in Myanmar's Buddhist-majority western Rakhine State, and poor people from neighbouring Bangladesh.
The Thai hosts described the day-long talks as "very constructive", saying all 17 countries at the meeting agreed on a statement to provide humanitarian help to 2,500 migrants believed to still be adrift at sea, as well as to the 3,500 who have already made it to Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian shores since May 1.
The statement also drew a commitment to address the "root causes" and "factors in areas of (migrants') origin", including improving the economy, human rights and security in the source countries.
But the document did not mention the Rohingya – who Myanmar refuses to recognise as an official minority.
Myanmar denies citizenship to the majority of its 1.3 million Rohingya and calls them "Bengalis" – shorthand for foreigners from neighbouring Bangladesh.
The publication of Myanmar's first census in three decades also failed to include the Rohingya in its tally, after authorities refused to count them if they self-identified.
Communal violence in 2012 between Rohingya and the Buddhist majority in Rakhine State brought their plight to the fore.
In a timely development just as the Bangkok meeting wrapped up, Myanmar's Ministry of Information said it had rescued 727 "Bengalis" adrift in its waters yesterday morning.
Bangladesh recognises some 30,000 Rohingya as refugees but tens of thousands more are treated as illegal migrants from Myanmar.
Meanwhile Myanmar's delegate came down hard on the UN's refugee agency for calling on the country to recognise the Muslim Rohingya minority as citizens.
On "this issue of illegal migration of boat people, you cannot single out my country," Myanmar delegate Foreign Ministry Director-General Htin Lynn said in stern response to a UNHCR plea to address the root causes of the ongoing migration crisis including the statelessness issue.
In his opening remarks to a meeting with 17 countries and other agencies, Volker Turk, UNHCR assistant high commissioner for protection, urged Myanmar to tackle the flow of Rohingya southwards, where they have arrived in thousands on the shores of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
To address the root causes of the exodus "will require full assumption of responsibility by Myanmar to all its people," he said.
"Granting of citizenship is the ultimate goal."
The Myanmar delegate called Volker's comments a "politicisation" of the migrant subject, adding that "some issues" are internal.