UN refugee agency confirms involvement in junta boat transport

The UN refugee agency has acknowledged it transported Myanmar junta officials aboard unmarked UN boats to Bangladeshi refugee camps last week, a move that has been criticized as risky to humanitarian workers and a “serious breach” of UN neutrality. 
UNHCR “supports efforts that could lead to the verification of all refugees and pave the way for eventual return,” the agency said in a statement on Sunday. “This most recently included providing logistical support to members of the Myanmar delegation to cross into Bangladesh for the technical verification process.”
The agency reiterated its previous assessment that conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state are “currently not conducive to the sustainable return of Rohingya refugees.”
UN boats – with UN markings removed from them – were used to carry officials from Myanmar’s ruling military junta to Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh on Wednesday. 
Junta officials have recently been negotiating a pilot project that would repatriate about 1,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar. Wednesday’s trip in the unmarked boats was made so that officials could engage in further talks and meet with refugees who could return under the pilot program.
Last week’s trip was made “in support of efforts to preserve the right to return” among the Rohingya, the UNHCR said in Sunday’s statement.
Consultation and dialogue with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by all parties is “important to enable refugees to make an informed choice about return and build confidence amongst the community,” the agency said.
In this March 15, 2023 image grab from a video, Rohingya refugees board a bus as they prepare to leave a meeting venue with Myanmar officials in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. (Image grab from AFP video)

‘Reputational risk’ for UN
The UN’s resident coordinator in Myanmar, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, said in an email sent to colleagues on Thursday that the UNHCR and the World Food Program provided the boats “at the very firm request” of Myanmar junta officials. He also said he was worried the trip created a “reputational risk” for all UN agencies and could jeopardize staff security. 
The email was obtained by the Myanmar Accountability Project and sent to Radio Free Asia. 
Chris Gunness, a former UN official who is now the director of the London-based NGO, said last week that it was “extraordinary” that the UN officials, on the one hand, would make statements saying that the conditions in Rakhine are unsafe while also playing a supporting role in the junta’s pilot project.
Removing UN markings from the boats was “a serious breach of UN neutrality,” Gunness said.
“It puts in danger UN convoys across Myanmar,” he told RFA last week. “If rebel groups, if opposition groups and others feel that these transports, these aid convoys are being used by the junta to be transported, they may come under attack. And that puts at risk the lives of humanitarian workers across Myanmar.”
The Cox’s Bazar area, which borders Myanmar, houses about 1 million refugees from the persecuted Rohingya minority, including about 740,000 who fled Myanmar following a military crackdown in Rakhine state beginning in August 2017. 
Edited by Malcolm Foster.


[圖擷取自網路，如有疑問請私訊]