Int’l community haven’t kept promise: FM

Bangladesh received more refugees than all of Europe did in 2016 at the height of the Syrian crisis.
Bangladesh which has less than 0.31 per cent of the global population, hosts 4.7 per cent of its total refugees, UN report said.
In order to provide support to the Rohingya refugees, it would require at least US$1 billion a year, which is equal to 3.5 per cent of the government revenue.
Analysts said foreign funding already seems to be going down as only 38 per cent of the $920 million budget for the Rohingyas this year has been committed.
Bangladesh is now home to some 12 million Rohingyas, including 743,000 who fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State since August 2017.
The arrival of the Rohingyas (in three phases) from the Rakhine State started in 1978. The latest wave in 2017 was by far the largest, and the refugee population is estimated at 882,676 or 203,137 families. Children make up more than half the population, UNDP said.
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen repeatedly called upon the international community to come forward with sincerity instead of giving only lip service and instructions for the early repatriation of Rohingyas.
"I've an appeal. It demands leadership of the world. We must do something. We must provide them a future," he said noting that the majority of 1.1 million Rohingyas living in Bangladesh is female or little girls.
China, India, Russia, ASEAN countries even the OIC member countries has failed to keep their promise to add some little over the Rohingya repatriation issue, the Foreign Ministry observed.
Knowing all these issues World Bank requested Bangladesh to include the Rohingyas into Bangladesh's society,USA urged Bangladesh to take some Afgan refugees, the Saudi Arabia which had, over decades taken in tens of thousands of Rohingya, has requested Dhaka to issue the refugees Bangladeshi passports as the kingdom "doesn't keep stateless people", all these issues places Bangladesh in an odd quandary, as it doesn't recognise the Rohingya as its citizens and is in pursuit of their eventual repatriation to Myanmar.
 "Bangladesh's people are generally sympathetic to the plight of the newcomers, there is growing anxiety of being "outnumbered" by foreigners in one's own land. This sense of vulnerability is going to become more and more complex as time goes by. These are the issues that the government will have to deal with sooner than later. And the international community will have to do more than just pay lip service about what a grand job the Bangladesh government is doing to host such a huge refugee populace. It is not merely a question of cents and dollars. Rather, the longer the Rohingyas stay on Bangladeshi soil, the greater will be the dangers of conflict erupting between Bangladeshis and Rohingyas," Foreign Minister Dr. AKA Momen said earlier.
It is a security threat for Bangladesh and the region, he said, adding that all countries of the world want a solution, including Myanmar's close allies.
Two repatriation attempts - one on November 15, 2019 and the other on August 22, 2020 - failed as the Rohingyas refused to return without guarantee of citizenship and safety in Rakhine where the conflict flared up since the Army crackdown.
"The government, with support from the international community, set up temporary settlements for refugees. The political process for their repatriation has been dragging on for the last two years and in the meantime, we have seen its adverse impact on host communities," Momen said.
UNDP data said, the overall, the impact of more than a million new people living in the two hill districts has taken a toll on agriculture production, environment and socio-economy of Bangladesh.
Every day, nearly three quarters of a million kg of timber, vegetation and roots are collected from the reserve forest to be used as cooking fuel (equivalent to the surface area of four football fields), UNDP said.
According to data from the Department of Agriculture Extension (DoAE), between August 2017 and March 2018, at least 100 hectares (ha) of cropland in the Teknaf/Ukhiya area was damaged due to refugee presence. Six thousand acres of government land that were forest and hilly areas were initially used to house the refugee population. The refugee influx has destroyed approximately 4,818 acres of forest reserve worth about USD 555 million.
"Even if repatriation starts, it will take many years to complete. Thus, the Rohingya presence is likely to create serious fiscal burden on Bangladesh," said Prof Abdur Rob Khan of the department of political science and sociology at North South University.
The repatriation will take 12 years, assuming 300 Rohingyas are sent back a day, and population growth and inflation rates stay on the existing trend, a study by the Centre for Policy Dialogue presented at the roundtable said. In that case, almost $9.2 billion will be required to support the refugees, it said.
It said hosting the Rohingya for the first five years with no repatriation would require over $7 billion.
Most of the Rohingya in Bangladesh lives in five camps. To illustrate - Kutupalong camp and its surrounding settlements accommodate about 700,000 refuges. According to one estimate, approximately 84,000 people live there per square kilometre.
Bangladesh's economy spends an estimated $1.2 billion a year supporting the Rohingya. The influx of refugees has adversely affected not only the Cox's Bazaar area but the national economy. Unemployed Rohingya have been found to be involved in criminal activities like Yaba drug smuggling. Managing law and order in the Cox's Bazar region has become a sizeable task for the enforcement agencies in the area.
To ease the overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar, the Bangladeshi government in right earnest decided to resettle groups of Rohingya in the riverine districts or 'Char' areas, specifically the island of Bhashan Char, 60 km from the mainland, in the Bay of Bengal, developing it at a cost of more than $360 million. Beginning December 2020, Bangladesh has relocated 14,000 Rohingya to Bhashan Char.
 "Without a strong UN role and China's active mediation, there is little chance of repatriation of the Rohingyas," Jashim said.