The very least that the Rohingyas deserved in their moment of relentless privation was the bilateral kerfuffle between Myanmar and Bangladesh over Naypidaw’s orchestrated repatriation of the first batch of refugees from nearly 700,000 who fled the crackdown ~ “ethnic cleansing” in the reckoning of the United Nations ~ last year. It is imperative for the Suu Kyi dispensation to clear the fog on so critical an issue not least because Dhaka has stoutly contested the claim.

Rights groups have criticised the announcement as a “publicity stunt” and Bangladesh has distanced itself, saying the repatriation was not part of the return process the two countries have been trying to start.

It has even trashed the claim as a “farce”, of a kind that can only deepen the enormity of the tragedy. Furthermore, the supposed repatriation of five members of a family flies in the face of the UN warning that it is not yet safe for the refugees to return; the number is a hopelessly minuscule fraction of the total ~ universally accepted as a mind-boggling figure.

Even if Myanmar’s claim is grudgingly accepted, simple arithmetic would suggest there are “700,000 minus five” who are still languishing in squalor across the Bangladesh border.

It is pretty obvious that the basics are yet to be taken care of; thus far the terms of engagement exist largely on paper, with little or no action by Myanmar in the follow-through.

The reactions of Bangladesh and the UN would suggest that what Myanmar claims to be the first exercise in repatriation could turn out to be no more than a shambolic endeavour, one that will neither enhance its standing nor help a deprived minority segment, which has been buffeted from shore to shore in the quest for a home.

It would be pertinent to recall that the stateless Muslim minorities have been massing in squalid refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh ever since the Myanmar army launched a brutal campaign against the community in northern Rakhine state last August.

The Myanmar government announced over the weekend that a family of refugees had become the first to be processed in newly-built repatriation centres. To buttress its claim, the information department in Naypidaw released a photograph of a family of five flaunting their identity cards.

The bluff was called on Monday by the Bangladesh Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, Abul Kalam ~ “The Rohingya family never crossed the border. By no definition can this be called repatriation.”

This has been reinforced by the Prime Minister, Begum Hasina, who on Tuesday iterated Myanmar’s huge responsibility in the critical task of repatriation. In the event, the refugee makes do without relief and repatriation ~ the worst of both worlds.