DHAKA – Bangladesh is preventing hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from seeking refuge after ethnic violence in Myanmar forced them to flee, with the foreign minister stating that the country was already “overburdened” by years of influx from the neighbouring state.
Bangladesh said it was “saddened” by casualties in the sectarian violence in neighbouring Myanmar where five days of strife between Buddhists and Muslims has claimed 25 lives, but expressed inability in accepting more refugees.
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said: “Our population is very dense and we are already overburdened with the huge number of documented and undocumented Myanmar refugees for the past 20 years”.
“This time we are not in a position to host additional refugees from anywhere,” she told an unscheduled press briefing at her office.
Moni’s comment came hours after the foreign office issued a statement saying Bangladesh was “saddened” by the sectarian violence but wanted to ensure that developments in Myanmar’s Rakhine state did not have any “trans-boundary spill-over”.
