Myanmar will "send back" Rohingya refugees who fled a brutal military crackdown in the country's west to Bangladesh if they are not on government documents, an immigration official has said amid stalled repatriations.
"We will send them back or take action by the law if someone is returning and is not on the list," Director of Maungdaw District Immigration, U Ko Ko Thaw, told dpa on Wednesday. "If they have lived here before we will accept them."
In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, minority Rohingya Muslims are denied access to basic rights such as healthcare and education and forbidden citizenship under Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Law.
Some 655,000 have fled to Bangladesh after government forces launched "security operations" in the wake of attacks by Rohingya militants in August last year.
Many do not have official documents or may have lost them as they fled operations dogged by accusations of rape, extrajuidicial killings, and arson committed by Myanmar security forces and local Rakhine Buddhists.
State media said on Wednesday Myanmar had contacted the Bangladesh Embassy about a delay in Rohingya repatriations, slated to begin Tuesday in line with a bilateral agreement signed in November last year.
"As we have not received any official word, we contacted the Bangladeshi Embassy in Yangon and they said they have many steps to be taken," U Kyaw Tin, Minister of International Cooperation, told reporters in Naypyitaw on Tuesday according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.
Myanmar last week gave Bangladesh a list of 1,258 people approved for repatriation.
