Govt to Verify Bangladeshi Refugees for Repatriation

Langsa, Aceh, May 24 (Antara) - The Indonesian government will soon verify Bangladeshi refugees currently being accommodated in Aceh for immediate repatriation. "A total of 720 Bangladeshis need to be verify because the International Organization for Migration has already prepared a location for a transit before they are being sent home," social affairs minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said here on Sunday. She said that refugees from Bangladesh were job seekers and so their treatment was repatriation. She said the problem had been discussed intensively by the Indonesian foreign ministry, the Bangladesh embassy and the head of the IOM mission. Minister Kofifah said that minister of justice and human rights Yassona Laoly would go to Medan, North Sumatra, to meet with the IOM mission chief who has expressed readiness to provide a place for the Bangladeshi refugees to transit. Minister Laoly would expedite the process of their travel documents so that the Bangladeshis who had been stranded in Aceh and several other regions along with Rohingya ethnic group members from Myanmar could be immediately repatriated. "IOM has been ready to facilitate them so long as their travel documents are complete an within two or three days their plane tickets would be ready," he said. The IOM would provide travel cost, transit place and plane tickets for the Bangladeshis to return to their home country.