Bangladesh's caretaker prime minister has also pledged to sustain the country's important textile industry.
Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus has delivered his first major policy speech, pledging to support the Rohingya community seeking refuge in the country and to sustain Bangladesh's textile trade.
Outlining his priorities to diplomats and UN officials on Sunday, Yunus pledged that his government would “continue to support the more than one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.”
“We need sustained efforts from the international community for humanitarian operations for the Rohingya and their eventual repatriation to their homeland, Myanmar, in safety, dignity and full rights,” he said.
Bangladesh is home to around one million Rohingya, most of whom fled neighbouring Myanmar in 2017 following a military crackdown that is now the subject of a genocide investigation by a United Nations tribunal.
Earlier this month, medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said more Rohingya are arriving in Bangladesh from Myanmar with war-related injuries amid escalating conflict between the military and the rebel Arakan Army (AA) in western Rakhine state.
More than 40 percent of the injured were women and children, it added in a statement.
Yunus, an 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, returned from Europe this month after being chosen by President Mohammed Shahabuddin to lead an interim government, meeting a key demand of student protest leaders.
Her predecessor, Sheikh Hasina, 76, fled the country by helicopter on August 5 after 15 years in power, ousted by anti-government protests.
The weeks of unrest and mass protests that ousted Hasina also caused widespread disruption in the country's key textile industry, with suppliers shifting orders out of the country.
“We will not tolerate any attempt to disrupt the global apparel supply chain, in which we are a key player,” Yunus said.
Bangladesh's 3,500 garment factories account for about 85 percent of its annual exports worth $55 billion.
In his speech, Yunus also highlighted how over the past month, “hundreds of thousands of our brave students and citizens rose up against the brutal dictatorship of Sheikh Hasina,” and pledged to investigate their deaths.
More than 450 people died between the start of the police crackdown on student protests and their overthrow three weeks later.
“We want an impartial and internationally credible investigation into the massacre,” Yunus said Sunday.
“We will provide all the support that UN investigators need.”
A UN fact-finding mission is expected to arrive in Bangladesh soon to investigate “atrocities” committed during student-led protests.
Yunus has also pledged to hold free and fair elections in the near future.
Yunus himself was convicted of violating labor laws during the previous administration in what had been denounced as a politically motivated trial.
“Sheikh Hasina’s dictatorship destroyed all the institutions of the country,” Yunus said.
He added that his administration “will make sincere efforts to promote national reconciliation.”
