British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday said prospects for talks to end Yemen’s devastating war were “more real” after Saudi Arabia confirmed to him its willingness to evacuate 50 wounded Houthi fighters as a confidence-building measure.

The evacuation of Houthi fighters, which Hunt said would have conditions about who travels with them, was a Houthi condition for peace talks that collapsed in September after the armed group’s delegation failed to show up.

“If this unblocks that, then that makes the prospect of those peace talks happening more real and that will be very important,” Hunt said.

“It’s about confidence-building measures on both sides, but certainly [from] the people I’ve spoken to today, there is a real willingness to engage in those.”

The Western-backed Saudi-Emirati-led coalition in Yemen resumed air strikes on the main port city of Hodeidah after a lull on Monday as Western allies pressed Riyadh to end a war that has pushed the impoverished country to the verge of starvation.

“Even though there’s been a temporary lull in the fighting … it is a desperate humanitarian situation and so I impressed on everyone the urgency of the situation we’re facing,” Hunt said.

Britain has pushed for new action at the United Nations Security Council to try to end hostilities in Yemen and find a political solution to the three-year war.

Khashoggi killing

Following meetings in Riyadh with the Saudi king and crown prince – the main proponent of Saudi military intervention in Yemen – the UK minister also said he anticipated “rapid progress” in bringing to justice those responsible for last month’s murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“I was led to believe that certainly the legal processes are going to be starting very soon indeed and we should hear something about that quite shortly,” Hunt told Reuters news agency.

Hunt’s trip, which included a meeting in the United Arab Emirates with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, comes as Riyadh, already under scrutiny for civilian deaths in Yemen air strikes, is facing global criticism and potential sanctions over Khashoggi’s killing inside its Istanbul consulate on October 2.

Britain is a major arms supplier to Saudi Arabia and opposition politicians and human rights groups have called on the government to cease such sales because of the high civilian death toll in air raids by the coalition in Yemen.

The government has said the arms sales earn Britain billions of pounds and guarantee jobs in the industry, and its response to the Khashoggi killing must bear this in mind.

‘Rapid progress’

“I talked very frankly about our concerns about what happened and how important it is for Saudi’s strategic partners to know that this cannot and will not happen again,” said Hunt.

“Due process is in train at the moment in Saudi Arabia, and I was led to believe there will be rapid progress in making sure that people are brought to justice.”

Hunt said accountability was needed for both the people who committed the act and those who ordered it.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says Khashoggi’s murder was ordered at the highest levels of the Saudi government, and some US lawmakers have accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, of doing so.

Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday reiterated the UK’s calls for a transparent investigation into the killing.

“As we seek to protect and advance our common security, it is vital that we and our partners in the international community demonstrate our common adherence to the rule of law,” May said. “Those responsible must be held to account.”

Image: GEBRUEDER BEETZ FILMPRODUKTION

Yangon, Myanmar – Abdul fled his burning home last August amid a frenzy of screams, smoke and gunfire.

As soldiers from Myanmar’s army shot people down at his village in northern Rakhine state, he saw his nephew and son-in-law struck by bullets and killed.

Abdul made it across the border with his wife and four children to Bangladesh where, like hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya Muslims, they have lived for more than a year in cramped, desperate conditions.

Life there has been bleak, but they have at least been out of reach of the army accused by UN investigators of waging a genocidal campaign of mass murder, arson and systematic rape against the minority group.

But now Abdul – whose name has been changed to protect his identity – says he has been told he and his family will be sent back across the border to a region where Rohingya continue to face what one investigator recently called an “ongoing genocide”.

Earlier this month, an official came to their hut at the Jamtoli camp in Cox’s Bazar and told them they would be repatriated this week.

“We were in shock, I couldn’t say anything, my mouth just stopped working,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dozens of other families nearby have also been told they are on a list of more than 2,200 people to be sent back starting on Thursday after Bangladesh and Myanmar struck a deal at the end of last month to return some 5,000 people.

More than 730,000 fled to Bangladesh after Myanmar’s military, aided by Buddhist mobs, began attacking villages in August 2017 as part of what it claimed were counter-terrorism operations.

Bangladesh officials say returns will be voluntary, but Rohingya are unconvinced.

‘Nowhere to hide’

Another Rohingya man who is on the list said a volunteer in the camp who works with government officials told him the decision was “final”.

The UN’s refugee agency has said it was not consulted on the plans and would not facilitate any returns this month. But it has agreed to interview Rohingya on the list to determine if they are willing to return.

“If we assess that they’re not going of their own free will that means the government will probably have to take another position,” said Firas al-Khateeb, a spokesperson for the agency.

Regardless of whether the plan goes ahead, talk of repatriations has sparked terror and chaos in a community already suffering extreme psychological trauma. At least 70 families at Jamtoli have reportedly gone into hiding, said Chris Lewa, director of Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project.

The threat of forced repatriation is also a likely factor in a recent uptick in people trying to flee Bangladesh by boat in hopes of reaching Malaysia, she told Al Jazeera.

Some Rohingya on the list, including Abdul, say they are prepared to take their own lives in Bangladesh to avoid being sent back.

“We have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Our only option is suicide,” Abdul said.  

‘Dangerous and premature’

He has heard people in his camp crying “day and night” since they learned they were to be sent back. One family of orphaned siblings, the oldest of whom is 18, is also on the list, he added.

Another Rohingya refugee told Al Jazeera that in recent days police have been posted at areas of the Jamtoli camp housing people to be sent back. “They haven’t done anything to anyone, but people assume they came to watch over people on the list,” he said anonymously, fearing repercussions.

Nay San Lwin, an activist working with the Free Rohingya Coalition, said he confirmed three cases of men attempting suicide after being told they would be sent back.

“It is likely many more will try to kill themselves on Bangladeshi soil if they are to be forcibly repatriated,” he said. “They will be in the killing fields if they are sent back this month.”

Last week 42 NGOs working in the Bangladesh camps and in Rakhine state issued a statement warning that repatriating refugees now would be “dangerous and premature“.

Rohingya “are terrified about what will happen to them if they are returned… and distressed by the lack of information they have received”, the statement said.  

The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights for Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, has warned returning people this week could violate international laws that forbid forcing refugees back to countries where they risk persecution.

Last month the chair of the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, Marzuki Darusman, warned that genocide is still taking place in Rakhine, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who did not flee last year’s violence face severe restrictions on their movement.

‘Trapped’

About 140,000 have been trapped behind barbed wire barricades in squalid camps on the outskirts of Sittwe, Rakhine’s state capital, since being forced from their homes by mobs of hardline Buddhists in 2012.

Hunger and disease are rife in the camps.

And Myanmar’s authorities, fuelled by anti-Muslim nationalists, have severely restricted access to basic services including healthcare and education.

Many Rohingya in Bangladesh say they would like to return to their homes in Myanmar, but they are adamant they will not be safe until their citizenship and other rights are restored, and those responsible for last year’s violence are held to account.

Rohingya community leaders have also called for “international protection” for returnees.

Many of their villages have been burned to the ground, and in some places new structures intended to house members of other ethnicities have been built in their place.

The government says the returnees will be housed in what it calls transit camps for the expected returnees, but it is unclear where the repatriated Rohingya are expected to settle in the longer term.

“All these people are from villages that don’t exist anymore, where are they going to go?” said Lewa.

“To me it seems likely the government is going to make more camps; they’re going to be trapped like the people in Sittwe.”

TALLAHASSEE — Attorney General Pam Bondi, Florida’s top legal officer, was attending a political event in California over the weekend as Florida erupted in legal and political chaos over its 2018 midterm recount, which included her office sending letters to law enforcement and election officials.

Bondi was among several Republican attorneys general attending the Republican Attorneys General Association’s fall meeting at Monarch Beach Resort on the Pacific coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, according a person people familiar with her schedule. The resort on its website describes itself as offering an “unmatched escape that embodies the barefoot elegance of Southern California’s coastal lifestyle.”

Story Continued Below

Bondi attended the event as Florida formally kicked off expected recounts Saturday for three statewide races, including U.S. Senate, governor, agriculture commissioner and three state legislative races.

Her office got in the mix Sunday, firing off letters asking state election officials to investigate any voter fraud and blasting state law enforcement for not pursuing voter fraud because election officials told them there was none.

A letter from her office was sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Sunday evening after Gov. Rick Scott’s Senate campaign called on the agency to investigate voter fraud in Palm Beach and Broward counties. One day after Scott’s request last Thursday, FDLE said that the Florida Department of State, which oversees state elections, had no fraud allegations to report, so FDLE did not start any investigations.

The fact FDLE said there was no voter fraud to report was used as pushback by Democrats when Republicans, including Scott and President Donald Trump, alleged without evidence that fraud was occurring in those Democratic-leaning counties.

In a letter, Bondi said the response from FDLE was not good enough.

“Commissioner, protesters continue to grow around the state as well as additional complaints of election impropriety,” Bondi wrote to FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen. “Your duty to investigate this matter is clear. I am directing you to take the necessary steps to promote public safety and to assure that our state will guarantee integrity in our election process.”

Bondi declined to comment for this story, but a source familiar with the event says she was at the Republican attorneys general gathering through at least Sunday night, which means she was “directing” state law enforcement from the political event at the California resort. The event began Saturday and is scheduled to run through Tuesday, according to a schedule of events that lists Bondi as an attendee.

In a separate letter to Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who heads state elections, Bondi formally asked his office to “report any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to both the statewide prosecutor and sate attorney.”

RAGA is a Washington-based group that raises money for and helps coordinate campaigns for Republican attorneys general. This year, the group played a role in electing Bondi’s replacement, Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, who was also at the California event.