UN urges Bangladesh to drop plans to send Rohingya back

The United Nations' human rights investigator on Myanmar urged Bangladesh on Tuesday to drop plans to start repatriating hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine state this month, warning they would face a "high risk of persecution".

The two countries agreed on Oct. 30 to begin the returns to Myanmar by mid-November.

"(The Myanmar government has) failed to provide guarantees they would not suffer the same persecution and horrific violence all over again," Yanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a statement.

The root causes of the crisis must first be dealt with, including the right to citizenship, she said.