Bangladesh to Issue Passports to 69,000 Rohingyas in Saudi Arabia: Foreign Affairs Adviser

Foreign Affairs Adviser of the interim government, Md. Touhid Hossain, has said that 69,000 Rohingyas will be given Bangladeshi passports. However, issuing passports does not mean that they will become Bangladeshi citizens.

The Foreign Affairs Adviser said that due to our own shortcomings, a large number of Rohingyas had gone to Saudi Arabia many years ago carrying Bangladeshi passports. At that time, passports were handwritten.

There have also been numerous allegations of corruption in this regard. The situation has reached a point where Saudi authorities are putting pressure on Bangladesh to renew the passports of those who went to Saudi Arabia using Bangladeshi passports.

He made these remarks while responding to journalists’ questions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday (January 28) in the afternoon.

He said that when a decision is made, many other interests are involved depending on the context of a country.

“We tried to avoid taking this step. But due to our other interests, we ultimately had to make the decision to issue Bangladeshi passports to these 69,000 Rohingyas. However, issuing passports does not mean that they are Bangladeshi citizens.”

Touhid Hossain said that citizens of any country can be issued passports, and there are examples of this in various countries around the world.

It is also possible to issue passports to citizens of other countries. “Our main point is that these people came from Myanmar. They may conduct research on ethnicity—that is a separate matter. But the ancestors of the 1.3 million people currently living here had been residing there for hundreds of years. Therefore, they must be taken back.”

He said that the entire world acknowledges that the Rohingyas are a community who are inhabitants of Myanmar’s Arakan region. “We have to deal with the issue from that perspective. This will not remain stuck due to minor technical issues. If an environment suitable for their repatriation can be created, we will need to do much more work to achieve that.”