Narinjara News


Saiyadul Amin - is he Burmese or Bangladeshi?

Maungdaw, 3^rd September 2003:  The repatriation of Saiyadul Amin, a Muslim young man, has stirred up controversies between the officials of the two neighbouring countries of Burma and Bangladesh.

The matter has put the administrative high command of Bangladesh into a fix, sources said.  Though the fatherless youth, Myanmarese Refugee Card # 17434, is officially recorded as living at Block H 73/1, he has been living for a long time in Teknaf municipality on Bangladesh side in a rented house with his mother and two other brothers.

But strangely enough his address has been recorded in the Nayapara Burmese refugee camp in Teknaf.  Besides that Saiyadul Amin by procuring the nationality certificate of Bangladesh used to travel a couple of times each week to Maungdaw on Burmese side.  He used to do business by travelling between the two bordering towns in this way alongside drawing his food ration from the Rohingya refugee camp by using his MRC. 

By regularly travelling between the two border towns he developed good relations with the Immigration Department officials in Maungdaw.  On 17 August he was deported with the members of his family to Burma when a lady immigration officer at Maungdaw identified him as the one travelling to Maungdaw by using a Bangladeshi pass and denied to accept him as a Burmese citizen. 

When challenged Amin admitted the charges, which put the Bangladeshi officials into an awkward situation.  The Burmese authority then declined to receive the entire family and sent them back. 

The incident and many other similar ones have put the repatriation process into a difficult affair, said an immigration official #