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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Hindu refugees eagerly await return to Myanmar

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Hindu farmer Surodhon Pal has packed his bags, eager to return to Myanmar after fleeing for Bangladesh during a wave of violence last year, but he is in a tiny minority — most of the refugees are terrified of going home.


Bangladesh wants the more than 655,000 refugees to start returning to Myanmar by the end of this month.


The vast majority are Rohingya Muslims who have faced decades of persecution in Myanmar, which sees them as illegal immigrants.


But a small community of Hindus who lived alongside the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and were caught up in the turmoil say they do want to return.


“We want security and we want food. If the authorities can give us those assurances we’ll happily go back,” Pal, 55, said.


Last month Dhaka sent a list of 100,000 refugees to Myanmar authorities for repatriation after the two governments signed an agreement in November for the process to begin on January 23.


But rights groups and the United Nations say no one should be repatriated against their will and so far only around 500 Hindu refugees have expressed willingness to go.


Modhuram Pal, a 35-year-old community leader, said some 50 Hindus had already returned to Rakhine.


Hindus who fled the area said masked men stormed into their community and hacked victims to death with machetes before dumping them into freshly-dug pits.


Myanmar’s military alleges the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) carried out the massacre on August 25, the same day the rebel group staged deadly raids on police posts that sparked a military backlash.


The ARSA has denied the allegations, saying it does not target civilians. But Pal and his fellow Hindu refugees say they will only go back if they are rehoused away from their former villages in Rakhine.


Although the influx has slowed, hundreds of Rohingya are still crossing into Bangladesh.


Rights groups say the crackdown was the culmination of years of persecution of the Muslim group in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.


It remains unclear why the Hindus were targeted, but they appear to have been caught in the middle of a conflict between the military and Rohingya militants. Some reports say each side viewed the Hindus as collaborators with the other.


Myanmar state media said last month the Hindus would be first to be accepted back, a stance that expert Shahab Enam Khan called a “case of communal divide and rule”. — AFP


Shafiq Alam, Suzauddin Rubel


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