COX – S BAZAR, Bangladesh – About 1,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees demonstrated Thursday in a camp in Bangladesh against the plan to repatriate them to Myanmar, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled the violence carried out by the army last year.

In the camp of Unchiprang, one of the sprawling refugee camps located near the town of Cox & # 39; s Bazaar, a Bangladeshi refugee official implored the Rohingya to return to their homeland by high pressure. speaker.

"We have everything organized for you, we have six buses here, we have trucks, we have food, we want to give you everything, if you agree to leave, we will take you to the border, to the transit camp," he said.

"We will not go!" Hundreds of voices, including children, chanted an answer.

The Bangladeshi authorities have announced that the repatriation of more than 700,000 Rohingyas would begin on Thursday if people were ready to go, despite calls from UN representatives and human rights organizations. man not to delay. But we do not know if there are volunteers.

Refugee Commissioner Abul Kalam has refused to say what the Bangladesh authorities would do if the refugees refused to leave, but according to an agreement with Bangladesh by the United Kingdom with Bangladesh and Myanmar, the Rohingya can not to be forced to return home.

"If they agree, we will take them to the transit camp and give them food for three days before handing them over to the Myanmar authorities," he said.

The huge exodus of Rohingya began last August, after Myanmar's security forces launched a brutal crackdown following attacks by a group of insurgents at the guard posts. The scale, organization and ferocity of the operation have led to accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide by the international community, including the United Nations.

Most of Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist inhabitants do not accept the fact that Rohingya Muslims belong to an indigenous ethnic group, they regard them as "Bengalis" who have entered Bangladesh illegally, even though generations of Rohingya have lived in Myanmar. Almost all have been denied citizenship since 1982, as well as access to education and hospitals.

Despite Myanmar's assurances, human rights activists said on Thursday that conditions were not yet in place to allow the return of Rohingya refugees.

"Nothing in the Myanmar government's words or actions suggests that the Rohingyas will be safe when they return," Human Rights Watch's Refugee Rights Director Bill Frelick said in a statement.

The group said that 150 people from 30 families had already been taken to a transit camp for their return.

Authorities in Bangladesh said they had worked with the US Refugee Agency to compile lists of people willing to return to Myanmar.

In the Jamtoli refugee camp, Setara, 25, said she and her two children aged 4 and 7 were on a repatriation list, but her parents were not . She added that she had never asked to return to Myanmar and that she had sent her children to a school run by relief workers on Thursday morning, as usual.

"They killed my husband, now I live here with my parents," said Setara, who gave only one name. "I do not want to go back."

She added that other refugees whose names figured on the Bangladesh government's repatriation list had fled to other camps, hoping to disappear among the crowded streets of Bangladesh. refugees, aid workers and Bangladeshi soldiers.

Repatriation negotiations have been going on for months, but plans in January to begin sending refugees back to Rakhine State, Myanmar, were canceled on the grounds that aid workers and Rohingya feared that their return is violated.

Foreign leaders, including US Vice President Mike Pence, have criticized Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate this week, on the sidelines of a summit of the Association of the Nations. from Southeast Asia (Singapore) for its management of the Rohingya crisis.

But on Thursday, Pence said US officials were "encouraged to hear that" the repatriation process would begin.

In addition to those who arrived in Bangladesh last year, an estimated 200,000 Rohingyas fled Myanmar in previous waves of violence and persecution.