Ibrahim Rasheed, MP for Central Maafannu, has started a petition after calling for reconsideration of the government’s decision on the Maldives-Mauritius border dispute.

While this petition has been started, The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) had already decided to have the hearing of the maritime boundary dispute case Mauritius filed against Maldives, on 28th of April.

Bonde’s petition states that Maldives is at risk of losing access to an area of 150 meters of Maldivian sea, airspace, and underwater space.

It was also mentioned in the petition that a negative impact might be caused on the Maldivian fishing industry, putting the fishermen into debt.

The petition has called for President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to bring back the letter sent to the Prime Minister “in secrecy” from the Parliament, and has claimed that a secret deal involving 500 million dollars took place. It was also called for independent investigators to work on this. However, the letter said to have been sent by President Ibrahim has nothing to do with the ITLOS hearing on April 28.

MP Ali Hussain of the Kendhoo constituency is among those who have signed the petition so far.

A discussion regarding this was carried out between Bonde and former Attorney General Dr. Mohamed Munnavaru, who is running for presidency in the election being held this year.

During the Chagos Archipelago Decolonization fiasco in 2019, International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Chagos belongs to Mauritius, and that the United Kingdom should return it to them.

However, Maldives voted against this as it could possibly create issues involving Maldivian territory.

Despite Maldives initially voting against this, the decision was changed as Maldives decided to vote for Mauritius - this led to a lot of public criticism, claiming that the government was agreeing to give away a large area of Maldivian sea.

Nevertheless, the government has assured that no area of Maldivian sea will be lost due to this.