Rohingya

India backs Bangladesh over Rohingyas, Sushma Swaraj reportedly tells Sheikh Hasina

New Delhi: According to bdnews24, a Bangladesh-based media group, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj called the prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina on Thursday and expressed New Delhi’s support to Dhaka.

Bangladeshi news agency UNB quoted Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Deputy Press Secretary, Nazrul Islam, who informed the local media that Swaraj had expressed full support to Bangladesh with regard to the Rohingya issue.

According to Nazrul Islam, Swaraj said that “New Delhi’s position is same as of Dhaka over the Rohingya issue”, the report added.

Islam has indicated that Swaraj’s statements meant that Myanmar should end its security crackdown. “What India is saying is that Myanmar must stop atrocities against Rohingyas,” he said. There has been no public confirmation or denial from the Indian side about the content of the conversation as reported by Bangladeshi media.

“Sushma said the Indian government is trying to create a pressure bilaterally and multilaterally on Myanmar to stop the persecution of Rohingya Muslims as well as take back the refugees who have taken shelter in Bangladesh,” said the UNB report.

Swaraj also said that the Rohingya problem is not limited to Bangladesh alone, but has turned into a global matter, reported The Daily Star, a leading Bangladesh-based newspaper.

Stating that the Bangladesh government has designated land for makeshift shelters of the Rohingya people, Hasina, however, expressed it would pose a big problem for her country if the refugees stayed for long. Hasina further said she would raise the Rohingya issue at the UN General Assembly in New York later this month.

According to the United Nations estimates, over 3,89,000 Rohingya Muslims i.e. over 40 percent of them have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh since 25 August.

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