The Myanmar authorities are yet to provide Bangladesh consular access to 368 detained ethnic minority people, who allegedly went to Myanmar from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to settle there. The government is planning to bring them back after identifying their nationality. According to sources, all of them are from the ethnic groups of Rakhine, Mro and Khami, and are mostly Buddhists. They are currently kept at the Maungdaw Township in Myanmar under police custody, sources in the ministry of foreign affairs said.

Earlier, the Myanmar government had handed over a list of the 368 people with their details to Bangladesh, requesting their repatriation from Myanmar. After receiving the list of the people, the ministry of foreign affairs sent it to the ministry of home affairs, asking it to identify their nationalities and take steps to bring them back from Myanmar, the sources added.

Talking to The Independent, a high official of the home ministry said that the authorities concerned would take steps to bring back the 368 people from Myanmar, if they are identified to be Bangladeshis after verification.

“Before verification, we cannot say they are Bangladeshis and they went to Myanmar from the CHT,” he said.

In a fax message, Hasan Khaled Foisal, commercial counsellor of the Bangladesh Embassy in Myanmar said, “Myanmar has been enticing Buddhist ethnic minorities from CHT of Bangladesh to settle down in Rakhine state.”

“During the Bangladesh visit of Myanmar minister for social welfare Dr. Win Myat Aye on 11-13 April 2018, he raised the issue of 368 people (Rakhine, Mro, Khami and Saingnet ethnic groups from Chittagong) taking shelter

in Myanmar. He had requested the Bangladesh foreign minister to arrange for their early repatriation.

 The Myanmar authorities had raised the same issue during the second meeting of the Joint Working Groups on repatriation in Dhaka on May 17, 2018.”

 “The Bangladesh embassy in Yangon sought consular access to meet the people, but the Myanmar authorities have not

yet granted consular access,” Hassan Khaled Foisal said.

 Sources said the 368 people belonging to ethnic minority groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) had been lured by certain agents from Myanmar on the promise of being given land left behind by Rohingyas, forcibly displaced from the Rakhine state.

 These people, who left their homes in the CHT, are poor and simple and easily fell into the traps laid by the agents, the sources added.

According to media reports in April this year, the Myanmar authorities had lured dozens of mainly Buddhist Bangladeshi tribal families to cross the border and settle on land abandoned by fleeing Rohingyas.

About 50 families from the remote hilly and forest areas on the Bangladesh side, attracted by offers of free land and food, had moved to the Rakhine state in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, the scene of a brutal army crackdown that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas to flee.

The families from the ethnic Marma and Mro tribes had left their homes in the Bandarban district, local councillor Muing Swi Thwee told the AFP.

He said 22 families left their villages in the Sangu reserve forest last month (March, 2018).

The families, mainly Buddhist but some Christians, too, were being lured by Myanmar to Rakhine where they were promised free land, citizenship and free food for five years, Muing Swi Thwee said.

“They are going there to fill up the land vacated by the Rohingyas, who have left Burma (Myanmar). They are extremely poor.”

More than 100 tribal families had left his area for Myanmar in the past three years, Muing Swi Thwee added.

Over 700,000 Rohingyas have fled Rakhine for camps in Bangladesh since Myanmar launched a crackdown last August that US and UN officials have described as ethnic cleansing.

An agreement to repatriate Rohingyas is yet to see a single refugee return. Rohingya leaders have said the refugees will not return unless they are allowed back to their villages, many of which have been torched by security forces, rather than to supposedly temporary resettlement camps.

Bangladesh government officials in Cox’s Bazar confirmed the migration to AFP, saying up to 55 tribal families had left for Myanmar.

“They are being lured by some people in Myanmar in return for free homes, free food for five-seven years. Some families have shifted there after being attracted by these offers,” a government official told the AFP.

Alam said some of the tribal groups had relatives in Rakhine, who were being used to woo the Bangladeshi tribals.

“These people have religious and linguistic similarities with Myanmar. Some of their ancestors settled there in the past,” he said.

Officials said they suspect political motives behind the migration.

A Bangladeshi security officer told the AFP that Myanmar had resettled many Buddhists in Rakhine by using a resettlement scheme which offers free food, homes, cows and cash.

Observers say Myanmar authorities are carrying out methodical social engineering schemes in northern Rakhine in the absence of many of the Rohingyas.

A series of development projects, either government or army-sponsored or privately funded, are transforming the area, which the military sees as the frontline of its fight against encroaching Islam.