Rohingya crisis: Bangladesh High Commissioner, S Jaishankar discuss influx of refugees

New Delhi: Bangladesh, which is facing a big influx of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, on Saturday explained its situation to India and the pressure it was under due to the migration. Bangladesh High Commissioner Syed Muazzem Ali called on Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Saturday, during which the two sides discussed the issue of Rohingya Muslims in detail. [caption id=“attachment_4026079” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] During the meeting, which lasted for more than half-an-hour, the Bangladesh envoy also talked about the need for the international community to intervene and put pressure on Myanmar to address the exodus, sources in Bangladesh High Commission here said. They said the Bangladesh government was providing shelter to these refugees out of humanitarian considerations but it was putting a lot of pressure on the country. “Thousands of Rohingya Muslims are coming to Bangladesh daily. It is creating a lot of problem for the country,” an official in the Bangladesh High Commission said. According to the United Nations, nearly 300,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh since 25 August when a fresh wave of violence erupted. According to media reports, the violence began when Rohingya militants attacked police posts in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state. Rohingya residents — a stateless mostly Muslim minority in a Buddhist-majority nation — allege that the military and Rakhine Buddhists responded with a brutal campaign against them, according to the reports. Prime Minister Narendra Modi , who concluded his three-day visit to Myanmar on Thursday, expressed solidarity with the government there against the “extremist violence” in the Rakhine state. Modi also urged all stakeholders to find a solution that respects the country’s unity. India also refused to be a part of a declaration adopted at an international conference recently in Indonesia as it carried “inappropriate” reference to violence in Rakhine state from where Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh. An Indian parliamentary delegation, led by Speaker Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan, dissociated itself from the ‘Bali Declaration’ adopted at the ‘World Parliamentary Forum on Sustainable Development’ held in Indonesia.