Vol. 474 No. 1
57 Mr. E. Ryan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will instruct the Irish Ambassador to India and Bangladesh to investigate the situation of Burmese refugees in those countries; and if he will report on the finding. [2574/97]
I am aware of reports by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to the effect that some 250,000 Rohingya people, an ethnic Muslim minority in the Rakhine State of Burma, are estimated to have fled to Bangladesh during 1991 and 1992. In 1993 the UNHCR established a Bangladesh-Burma bilateral repatriation programme with the aim of reintegrating voluntary returnees from Bangladesh and improving the conditions of the local population in Burma to prevent a similar outflow of refugees in the future.
More than 215,000 Rohingyas have now been voluntarily returned to Burma and the repatriation programme is scheduled to be complete this year. To date the European Union has contributed over US$12 million to the UNHCR for this programme. The UNHCR has recently submitted an appeal to the Department of Foreign Affairs seeking funding for this programme and this appeal will be sympathetically considered.
The Irish Ambassador in New Delhi, who is expected to present credentials in Dhaka in the near future, will continue to monitor the situation closely in co-operation with the relevant international bodies.
