Myanmar has not denied Rohingya atrocities: B'desh FM

Dhaka:  Bangladesh was making every diplomatic effort to send the Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, which has "not denied charges of atrocities" against the Muslim minority in the world court, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said here.

"Myanmar did not deny carrying out atrocities. It only objected to the charges that genocide took place there," bdnews24 reported citing Momen as saying at an event on Thursday.

Last month, Myanmar State Councillor and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi defended the Myanmar military and rejected accusations of genocide committed against the Rohingya Muslims as "incomplete and misleading" in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Momen further said that the Rohingya refugees were twice the number of the local inhabitants of Cox's Bazar, where some 80 per cent of them depend entirely on humanitarian aid, and claimed the crisis has triggered price hike, rise in dropouts and a lack of jobs in the southeastern district.

The government has spent 56.36 billion Bangladeshi taka ($663,565,168) on tackling the refugee crisis, the Minister said, adding that the aid provided by other countries and international agencies was not enough.

Momen once again blamed Myanmar for the stalled process to repatriate the Rohingya, accusing the country's government of spreading disinformation and showing no interest to take its nationals back.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since the military operations began three years ago.

As of September 30, 2019 there were 915,000 Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh. Almost 80 per cent arrived between August and December 2017.

Last March, Bangladesh said it would accept no more.