_{Narinjara News}


Burma will Accept its Citizens Jailed in Bangladesh

<sub>Dhaka, March 11:The Burmese Ambassador to Bangladesh promised that Burma will accept those Burmese citizens from Bangladesh’s jails. 

He made that promise to the local Buddhist people and the regional authority as part of a speech at a Buddhist celebration in the tribal town Bandarban of Chittagong Hill Tracks of Bangladesh. 

The speech was delivered on the 5</sub>^th <sub>of March.  There are many Burmese citizens inside the Bangladeshi prisons, and despite the fact that many have served their sentence, they are still not accepted by the Burmese government.

In the prison of Cox’s Bazar, the district bordering Burma, there were 289 prisoners waiting to go back to Burma.  An agreement between the two countries saw 72 people sent home to Burma on February 28th.

 “It is too early to say anything about the fate of the rest”, says a local Bangladeshi official.

Such promise from the Burmese Ambassador is encouraging news for those Burmese in the Bangladeshi prisons, says the Bangladeshi language newspaper, The Daily Jugantor.

While the Ambassador was attending the last year ceremony in Bandarban, the Burmese prisoners staged a hunger strike against the long stay that they had to endure. Currently, there are about 300 Burmese prisoners in Bandarban and about 500 in the rest of the Bangladesh.

Some Burmese nationals have served their sentences, but they were not accepted back by the Burmese government, they have to stay in the prisons for 5 to 10 more years.

A Burmese jailer said that Bangladeshi prisons have the worst conditions in the world; because there are too many convicts.  Burmese citizens’ inability to speak Bengali and their religious differences make prison life harder.

The Burmese Ambassador made his promise at the ceremony inaugurating four bronze Buddha’s from Burma as part of the Dabaung fullmoon day festival. #</sub>