Myanmar has accepted what appears to be the first five among some 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape military-led violence against the minority group, even though the United Nations says it's not yet safe for them to return home.

A government statement said Saturday that five members of a family returned to western Rakhine state from the border area.

The statement said authorities determined whether they had lived in Myanmar and provided them with a national verification card. The card is a form of ID, but does not mean citizenship - something Rohingya have been denied in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they've faced persecution for decades.

It said that the family was staying temporarily with relatives in Maungdaw town, the administrative center close to the border.