A foreign delegation comprising diplomats from China, India and Bangladesh, and representatives from the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance met this week with junta-appointed officials in charge of transit camps for Muslim refugees in Maungdaw Township.

The regime’s international cooperation minister U Ko Ko Hlaing and Arakan State chief minister U Htein Lin accompanied the foreign diplomats, according to March 9 issues of junta-controlled newspapers.

The delegation arrived at Nga Ku Ya transit camp on Wednesday at around 3 p.m. and met officials of the transit camp, according to a source from the camp who asked for anonymity.

“They said they would issue Form 66, the household certificate, for returnees. They then left for Hla Poe Kaung transit camp. The delegation comprised around 25 people,” he said.

The regime plans to take back more than 1,000 Muslim refugees currently residing in Bangladesh in the first phase of its repatriation programme, according to the February 14 issue of the junta-controlled Myanma Alin newspaper.

Junta officials, however, have not yet come and discussed the repatriation plans with the Muslim refugees, according to the refugees.

Ko Aung Myaing from the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh told DMG: “I heard they visited transit camps yesterday. But they have not yet discussed with us about repatriation. We don’t know how they will take us back.  If they are to take us back, they must guarantee our safety, and allow us to live back in our original places, and grant us citizenship.”

The regime is seeking to salvage its reputation on the international stage by taking steps to bring back the Muslim refugees, said Arakanese politician U Pe Than.

“It is working to take them back not out of its sympathy toward them, but just to improve its image. It is just working to take advantage of the situation amid the current political crisis,” said U Pe Than.

On January 7, U Ko Ko Hlaing, junta border affairs minister Lieutenant-General Tun Tun Naung and social welfare minister Dr. Thet Thet Khine visited the Taungpyo Letwe, Nga Khu Ya and Hla Poe Kaung transit camps.

In response, Arakan Army spokesman U Khaing Thukha said the regime’s repatriation plan is just for show and aimed to win diplomatic recognition.

The foreign diplomats also visited camps for Muslim internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sittwe on Wednesday.

More than 700,000 Muslims fled to neighbouring Bangladesh when the Myanmar military carried out “clearance operations” following the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks on several police outposts in 2017.

The United Nations’ human rights chief at the time described the military’s actions as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” while others in the international community have called it genocide, including Bangladesh’s former foreign minister and the US secretary of state.