The United Nations Organization (UNO) has, time and again, termed the Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine State of Myanmar “the most prosecuted community in the world”. One would find the truth of calling the unfortunate community so, if one takes an impassionate look at the plight of Rohingyas at home and abroad. Rohingyas have, as evident from numerous authentic reports compiled by reputed international human rights organizations from time to time, been deprived of most of the civic rights and amenities that enable human beings to survive on the face of the earth. That resulted in more than two and fifty thousand Rohingyas crossing over to the Bangladesh side during the period of 1991-1992.The government of Bangladesh was, true to the international norms and practices relating to refugees, prudent enough to provide temporary shelter and protection to these people. Though more than two decades have elapsed since then, not all the Rohingyas have yet been repatriated back to their country of origin due to reasons more than one. It is, of course, true that there have been piecemeal efforts on the part of government of Bangladesh, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Government of Myanmar to resolve the crisis. But sadly enough, the crisis persists, much to the frustration of the hosts and the refugee community.
There are, in fact, three viable and durable solutions to the refugee crisis that has already assumed the proportion of a protracted situation. They are namely repatriation, resettlement and naturalization .Out of the three options, repatriation, i.e. sending the refugees back to their country of origin, is considered the best. But regrettable as it is, this option appears to have already lost much of its appeal to the Rohingyas who stay stranded in the two UNCHR-operated refugee camps at Ukhiya and Teknaf upazilas in the district of Cox’s Bazar.
When it comes to resettlement, the scenario is very bleak here as well. There was a time that a total of nine governments from the developed world expressed their eagerness to help the Rohingya refugees get resettled in their countries. As the process got underway accordingly, a few hundred refugee families were resettled in those countries.
But the process itself got stalled midway due to strong objection put forward by the government of Bangladesh. The raison d'être in this regard was that the resettlement opportunities would have proved a “pull factor” that might have made more Rohingyas opt for crossing the border into Bangladesh.
And now the third option is naturalization. Naturalization simply means awarding citizenship to the refugees by the country of refuge, the country where they are sheltered. There have, over the years, been instances of the international community referring to Bangladesh’s need for considering awarding citizenship to the Rohingyas. The response of the successive governments of Bangladesh to this proposition has been without ambiguity, a loud and clear ‘No’. Given the vast number of her own population to grapple with, Bangladesh’s stance on the issue at hand has been quite predictable and logical. Of course, the crisis witnessed, over time, some rays of hope: the government of Bangladesh planning to relocate registered refugees to the coastal belt of the district of Noakhali and the government of Myanmar’s occasional willingness to take few thousand refugees back. While Myanmar’s such willingness generated, as reported in the Bangladesh media then, significant interest among the stakeholders about the possibilities of the repatriation process restarting, this appeared, once again, to have been overshadowed by the prospects of relocation as proposed by the government of Bangladesh months ago. With an elected civilian government at the helm of affairs following decades of military rule and given the unfolding prospects of democratic transition in Myanmar, the government of Bangladesh can now mull over taking up the matter through diplomatic channels in right earnest. It is, as a matter of fact, now high time the government of Bangladesh took pragmatic measures aimed at resolution of the crisis.

The writer is a practising lawyer at the District and Sessions Judge’s Court, Cox’s Bazar