New Delhi: Union minister V K Singh has asserted that the government will follow its policy for refugees to tackle the Rohingya issue.

"The government will go according to the policy to deal with refugees ... when the situation is good enough for them to return to their country," he said in Thiruvananthapuram. 

Nobody wants to stay as a refugee, the minister of state for external affairs said.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had on September 5 said the Rohingya were illegal immigrants and stood to be deported.

The Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority, are regarded as illegal immigrants in Myanmar. Thousands of them have fled to Bangladesh and India.

Around 40,000 Rohingya Muslims have settled in India, and nearly 16,000 of them have received refugee documentation, according to the United Nations.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein had accused Myanmar of waging a "systematic attack" on the minority.