Japanese Ambassador to Bangladesh Ito Naoki has said his country is considering resettlement of some Rohinyas to Japan as Bangladesh tries to ease its load of over a million of refugees who fled their homes in Myanmar to evade persecution.
“Japan has received the request about third country resettlement (of Rohingyas) from your (Bangladesh) government. The UNHCR here is also advising us to consider the possibility [to take Rohingyas to Japan],” the outgoing envoy told BSS, before leaving Dhaka, ending his tenure.
Ito, however, said approximately 300 Rohingyas were already living in a city 100 kilometres north of Tokyo but in line with a general policy, Japan was a bit cautious about foreign refugees, though there was precedent when his country provided such refuge.
“So there is a base of [Rohingya] community there (in Japan), but at the moment we are yet to come to any conclusion,” said the ambassador, who left Dhaka on Tuesday night.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen earlier said he had urged the United States, Britain and Japan to share Bangladesh's burden of the huge number of Rohingyas.
Momen told newsmen that he suggested that each of these countries take in at least 100,000 of the forcibly displaced people who had fled their home in Myanmar's Rakhine state amid a military backed racial crackdown in 2017.
Despite repeated insistence, Myanmar so far has not taken back a single Rohingya.
The United States took in 24 Rohingyas last week in a symbolic response to Dhaka's request while Momen called the development a “drop in the ocean”.
Diplomatic sources, however, said the US had informed Dhaka it would take some Rohingyas from Bangladesh every year and had shortlisted 62 of them for the first batch.
“We know repatriation is the (only) solution to this issue and Myanmar is the only country which could provide the solution by allowing Rohingya refugees to go back in a safe, voluntary and dignified manner,” the Japanese envoy said.
He added that Tokyo seriously hoped the Myanmar-Bangladesh consultation process would come to an end and repatriation would start in earliest possible time.
Ito said Japan would continue to cooperate with the Bangladesh government and do its best to stabilize the situation in Rakhine state and to improve the political situation in Myanmar but preferred to use the word “mediation”.
“We still have the prospect for repatriation. So we will continue our cooperation toward your government, we will continue our funding towards UN agencies,” Ito said.
He said Tokyo had increased the amount of funding for Rohingyas this year, providing $27.8 million for the displaced people and host community in Bangladesh, while the amount was $5 million last year.
The ambassador said Tokyo's focus towards the crisis had manifested through this enhanced allocation despite the Russia-Ukraine war amid speculations that the Japanese overseas assistance could be diverted largely towards Ukraine.
He said Japan's contribution to the UN refugee agency was increasing to help them handle the Rohingya crisis.
“I think that is a clear demonstration that we are still focusing on this (Rohingya) crisis. We are still doing our best to alleviate the living conditions of Rohingyas both inside Cox's Bazar and Bhashanchar camps,” said the envoy.
Since August 25, 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting over 1.2 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar, and most of them arrived there after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and other rights groups dubbed as "genocide".
No Rohingya could go back home in the last five years while repatriation attempts failed twice due to trust deficit among the forcibly displaced people about their safety and security in Rakhine state.
The Bangladesh government has been urging the developed nations to take in factions of Rohingyas from Bangladesh as third country resettlement while the repatriation attempts to Myanmar have repeatedly failed.