He said that U Khin Maung Lwin, the Maungdaw District Administration Officer and U Hla Myint, the Maungdaw Township Administration Officer, told three high level UNHCR officers who were interested in meeting Maungdaw Rohingya community leaders that they would not be able to do so.

Later the authorities said the UNHCR officers could meet Rohingyas who had been nominated by them, according to a Maungdaw Township officer who did not want to be named.

Among the Rohingyas selected by the authorities to meet the UNHCR officers were Master Jangir, Mujeb Ullah, Dr. Kamal, Yasin (Gold) and Advocate Arman Ullah who are allegedly close to the authorities.

Islam a businessman from Maungdaw said that he thought the nominated Rohingyas were not representative of all the Rohingya in Maungdaw.

Rohingya activists believe that the authorities want to control all the Rohingyas in the area. If that is not the case they want to know why the authorities will only let the UNHCR speak to Rohingyas that they nominated. They believe that if the authorities wanted to genuinely solve the Rohingya problem they would allow the UNHCR to speak to any Rohingya they wanted.

They want the UNHCR to be aware that the Rohingyas they were due to meet were selected by the authorities and that the authorities might have had an ulterior motives for selecting those Rohingyas.

Edited for BNI by Mark Inkey