Bangladesh is under “no obligation” to shelter 81 Muslim Rohingya refugees adrift for almost two weeks on the Andaman Sea and being assisted by neighbouring India, Bangladesh foreign minister AK Abdul Momen said.
India’s coastguard found the survivors and eight dead crammed on a fishing boat and was trying to arrange for Bangladesh to take them, Indian officials said on Frida
While feeding the refugees and giving them water, India was not planning to take them ashore.
But Momen told the Reuters news agency late on Friday that Bangladesh expects India, the closest country, or Myanmar, the Rohingya’s country of origin, to accept them.
“They are not Bangladesh nationals and in fact, they are Myanmar nationals. They were found 1,700km (1,100 miles) away from the Bangladesh maritime territory and therefore, we have no obligation to take them,” said Momen, who is in the United States.
“They were located 147km (91 miles) away from Indian territory, 324km (201 miles) away from Myanmar,” he said by phone, adding that other countries and organisations should take care of the refugee.Indian foreign ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
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New Delhi did not sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, which spells out refugee rights and state responsibilities to protect them.
Nor does it have a law protecting refugees, though it currently hosts more than 200,000, including some Rohingya.
More than one million Rohingya refugees from predominantly Buddhist Myanmar are living in teeming camps in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, including tens of thousands who fled after Myanmar’s military conducted a deadly crackdown in 2017.
Traffickers often lure Rohingya refugees with promises of work in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, expressed alarm this week over the missing boat.
The refugees have been drifting in international waters after leaving southern Bangladesh on February 11 in the hope of reaching Malaysia.
On Saturday, they were under the aid and surveillance of India as officials were holding talks to return them to Bangladesh.
The boat, which sailed from the massive Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, was carrying 56 women, eight girls, 21 men and fiv
Many of the survivors, according to Indian officials, were sick and suffering from extreme dehydration, having run out of food and water after the boat’s engine failed four days into their journey.
