Rohingyas are becoming Bangladeshis in Saudi
During the ousted Sheikh Hasina government in the face of the students’ movement, the decision was taken to issue Bangladeshi passports to 69,000 Rohingyas staying in Saudi Arabia. Following this, the process of issuing Bangladeshi passports to the Rohingyas staying in the country has started.
Already more than 8 thousand Rohingyas have been given Bangladeshi passports. What is more worrying is that the applicants are applying not only for themselves but also for their spouses, children and grandchildren. As a result, against 69 thousand applicants, the actual number will exceed several lakhs. In this case, the Bangladesh Mission of Saudi Arabia has sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeking an opinion on whether passports will be given to these applicants.
It is known that these Rohingyas are not citizens of Bangladesh by birth, but they are being given the same passport as Bangladeshis. As a result, there will be no opportunity to identify these Rohingyas and real Bangladeshi citizens separately in the future.
The decision to give passports to the Rohingyas was made by the Hasina government, the foreign adviser of the interim government clarified. Touhid Hossain too. “We have not made a decision,” he told Us Times.
The previous government started giving passports to these Rohingyas.
Incidentally, this decision was taken in the inter-ministerial meeting held in July 2023 under the chairmanship of the then Foreign Secretary Masood Bin Momen. After that the Bangladesh Mission located in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was instructed to take necessary steps. This is the continuation of this passport issuing program, which is kept completely ‘secret’ by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs. According to sources, so far 20,000 Rohingyas have applied for Bangladeshi passports, among which the number of wives, children, grandchildren and granddaughters is more.
Since 2019, the Saudi government has been pushing to give Bangladeshi passports to 69,000 Rohingya. But so far the country has not handed over the complete list to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh. An official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Our Times on condition of anonymity that sometimes Saudi Arabia provides us with a list of some Rohingyas. We also take action accordingly. But they have not handed over the complete list so far.
According to related sources, Saudi Arabia is the biggest labor market of Bangladesh in the Middle East. Many Muslim citizens of Myanmar (Rohingya) are also engaged in various activities there. They are working in the country with a special card without a passport. Many of them are staying in Saudi Arabia with Bangladeshi passports and visas using fake names and addresses. This number is not less.
Some people are caught by the Saudi police after not being able to renew their fake passports at the end of the period. Apart from this, these displaced Rohingyas are also involved in various crimes, which is further damaging the reputation of Bangladesh in the international arena. However, the Saudi government has always identified these Rohingyas with fake passports as citizens of Bangladesh.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sources, in 1977, the then king of Saudi Arabia, Khalid bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, gave shelter to 69,000 Rohingyas in his country on humanitarian grounds. Since then, the Saudi government has identified these Rohingya as displaced citizens in Bangladesh. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs sources, since 2019, the Saudi government has been pressuring the 69,000 Rohingyas to return to Bangladesh.
The Saudi government also sent a diplomatic letter (note verbale) in July 2020 threatening to send back Bangladeshi citizens working in that country if the Rohingyas are not brought back. Then Bangladesh government handled that situation through diplomatic activities. At the same time, these Rohingyas are not citizens of Bangladesh. Despite this, the pressure of the Saudi government continued.
It is known that many of the Rohingyas staying in Saudi Arabia later got Bangladeshi passports from the Bangladesh Mission of Saudi Arabia. They also traveled to Bangladesh with that passport. The Saudi government has given many such documents to Bangladesh. There has been no investigation yet on how those Rohingyas got Bangladeshi passports.
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