HRW sees increasing violence in Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar

According to Human Rights Watch, about a million Rohingya refugees are living in increasingly poor conditions in Cox’s Bazar camps due to increasing violence by armed groups and criminal gangs.

In August alone, there have been reports of members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army committing killings, kidnappings, forced recruitment, extortion and robbery, Human Rights Watch said in a statement released yesterday (Friday).

According to the international human rights organization, the authorities in Bangladesh have failed to provide refugees with access to protection, education, livelihoods and freedom of movement.

“My heart goes out to the safety of our Rohingya students and the entire community in the area,” a Rohingya teacher in the camps wrote in a message to Human Rights Watch.

His students are increasingly absent from class, he said, either kidnapped for ransom, illegally recruited or kept home by their parents out of fear. “Brutal gang activity has created a climate of terror. The fear is palpable, a suffocating burden.”

The interim chief adviser to the government of Bangladesh, Prof. Muhammad Yunus, said he would “continue to support the more than one million Rohingyas residing in Bangladesh.”

Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain said they are not able to take in any more refugees.

Since January 2023, more than 5,000 Rohingya have taken perilous boat journeys to Indonesia and Malaysia in the hope of a better life. An estimated 520 of them are dead or missing.

While the international response to the 2017 violence has been lackluster and no one has been held accountable for crimes against the Rohingya, some important steps toward justice have been taken, Human Rights Watch said.

In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted the interventions of seven governments in the case of Gambia v. Myanmar under the Genocide Convention. Hearings on the merits of the case are likely to take place in 2025.

At the same time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) continues to investigate the situation, although the court’s jurisdiction is limited to alleged crimes committed at least partly in Bangladesh, an ICC member state.

According to Human Rights Watch, the UN Security Council should expand the ICC’s jurisdiction in this case by referring the situation in Myanmar to the court.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are facing their most serious threats since 2017, when the Myanmar military launched a large-scale campaign of massacres, rapes and arson in northern Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch reported today.

August 25, 2024, marks seven years since the military committed crimes against humanity and genocide, forcing more than 750,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

In recent months, the Myanmar military and the ethnic Arakan army have committed mass killings, arson and illegal recruitment of Rohingya communities in Rakhine State.

Nearly 200 people were killed on August 5 by drone strikes and shelling of civilians fleeing fighting in the town of Maungdaw, near the border with Bangladesh, according to Rohingya witnesses.

There are still around 630,000 Rohingya in apartheid-era Myanmar, making them particularly vulnerable to renewed fighting.

“Rohingya in Rakhine State are facing abuses tragically reminiscent of the military’s brutality in 2017,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Once again, forces are forcing thousands of Rohingya from their homes through killings and arson, leaving them with nowhere safe to go.”

“Over the past seven years, UN bodies and governments have not done enough to end the system of apartheid and persecution that exposes the Rohingya to even greater suffering,” Pearson said.

“To end the ongoing cycle of abuse, destruction and displacement, international efforts are needed to hold those responsible to account.”

According to Human Rights Watch, the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh are under pressure from all sides.