Ongoing refugee influx forces authorities to extend census [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Ongoing refugee influx forces authorities to extend census

Local January 21, 2017

The large number of Rohingya refugees who recently entered Bangladesh fleeing ethnic persecution in their home country Myanmar has forced the authorities to extend its ongoing census of the refugees.
It was the maiden census of the refugees that started in last year’s June. Although it has long been estimated between 300,000 and 500,000 refugees who crossed into the country from Myanmar in phases since 1970s, a census was never conducted for determining their actual number.
When the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics came close to conclude the census, fresh refugees started to arrive in the country from early November, following the latest spell of violence in Myanmar.
The Myanmar military launched an offensive in Rakhine’s northern Maungdaw after coordinated attacks killed nine security men on October 9. The Myanmar government insisted that the military drive was aimed at eliminating terrorists.
But international rights groups and observers warned of genocide of Rohingyas in Myanmar as the drive continued limiting aid workers’ and journalists’ access to the area under military operation, with refugees arriving in Bangladesh to tell stories of mass killings, rapes and tortures.
The flow of the refugees to the country continued through December when the BBS submitted its census report stating that the new arrivals would have to wait until next census to be conducted.
But the authorities decided to extend the census for including the new arrivals as they continued to enter the country in greater number. The refugee inflow continued till date.
According to the UN, as many as 66,000 Rohingyas so far fled to Bangladesh in the face of persecution in Myanmar since October.
‘The UN counted the refugees who entered the country until January 10,’ said a BBS official concerned with the census preferring anonymity.
According to him, the BBS authorities recently decided to extend its census following a request sent by the National Taskforce on Implementation of Strategy on Undocumented Myanmar Nationals (UMN).
The taskforce at its 11th meeting in late December decided to request BBS for including the new arrivals in the census.
‘We hope to start counting the new refugees this month. The census will be completed on June 30 this year,’ said the BBS official who was not authorized to talk to media about the census.
It would be a challenge for the BBS to take the census ahead from this point as the new refugees are being scattered across the country after entering through porous border.
The census will be conducted in three districts --- Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, and Bandarban, BBS sources said.
The fresh refugee inflow is the largest since 2012, when over 50,000 of the Rohingya refugees entered the country following clashes between majority Buddhists and minority Muslim Rohingyas.
The first influx of the refugees arrived in the country in 1978. The second one came in 1992.
Although officially there were 34,000 refugees living in two registered refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the ever-increasing number of Rohingya refugees created several unregistered Rohingya camps in the district.
Local people were worried over the continued influx of refugees who as unregistered inhabitants were not under any surveillance.
Rohingyas are considered by many the world’s most persecuted minority community. They are called stateless people as Myanmar, which was their home for generations, denied them citizenship.
It is estimated that a million Rohingyas live in Myanmar. According to international media reports, repeated persecutions sent the Rohingyas to seek refuge in 18 countries across the world.