She made the call during an interview with the Wall Street Journal in New York this week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Asked if she would consider forcing the Rohingya to return to Myanmar, the Prime Minister told WSJ, “Definitely they should go back to their own country.”
But she did not suggest Bangladesh would use force to make that happen, the WJS report says.
Sheikh Hasina said the international community seems to be failing in not convincing Myanmar to welcome the refugees back, but added, “I cannot blame anybody because Myanmar is not listening to anyone.”
She said Bangladesh would continue to host the refugees but that their presence was taking a toll.
“Our land is just 147,000 square kilometers and we’ve a population of 160 million, so how we can keep these people for a long time? Our local people are suffering, there’s deforestation—a big chunk of our forest in the area where they are living is already gone,” said the PM.
During the interview, Sheikh Hasina laid out a plan to enable the more-than-a-million Rohingya currently taking refuge in her country to return to Myanmar.