HRW sees surging violence in Cox’s Bazar Rohingya camps

Human Rights Watch has said about one million Rohingya refugees are facing increasingly dire conditions in the Cox's Bazar camps amid surging violence by armed groups and criminal gangs.

In August alone, it said, there have been reports of members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army carrying out killings, abductions, forced recruitment, extortion, and robbery, said a Human Rights Watch statement issued yesterday (Friday).

Bangladesh authorities have failed to ensure refugees access to protection, education, livelihoods, and movement, said the global Rights body.

"My heart aches for the safety of our Rohingya students and the entire community in the area," a Rohingya teacher in the camps wrote in a note to Human Rights Watch.

His students have been increasingly absent from classes, he said, either abducted for ransom, unlawfully 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 weight."

Bangladesh's interim government chief adviser, Prof Muhammad Yunus, said he will "continue to support the million-plus Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh."

Foreign Adviser Md Touhid Hossain said they are not in a position to accept any more refugees.

Since January 2023, more than 5,000 Rohingya have attempted dangerous boat journeys to Indonesia and Malaysia in the hope of a better life. An estimated 520 of them have died or gone missing.

While the international response to the 2017 violence was meager and no one has yet been held to account for the crimes against the Rohingya, there have been some important steps toward justice, Human Rights Watch said.

In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted the interventions of seven governments in Gambia's case against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention. Hearings on the merits of the case will most likely take place in 2025.

At the same time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has an ongoing investigation into the situation, although its jurisdiction is limited to alleged crimes committed at least in part in Bangladesh, an ICC member country.

The UN Security Council should expand the ICC's jurisdiction in the case by referring the situation in Myanmar to the court, Human Rights Watch said.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are facing the gravest threats since 2017, when the Myanmar military carried out a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson in northern Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said today.

August 25, 2024, marks the seventh anniversary since the start of the military's crimes against humanity and acts of genocide that forced 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 unlawful recruitment against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State.

On August 5, nearly 200 people were reportedly killed following drone strikes and shelling on civilians fleeing fighting in Maungdaw town near the Bangladesh border, according to Rohingya witnesses.

About 630,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar under a system of apartheid that leaves them exceptionally vulnerable to renewed fighting.

"Rohingya in Rakhine State are enduring abuses tragically reminiscent of the military's atrocities in 2017," said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Once again, armed forces are driving thousands of Rohingya from their homes with killings and arson, leaving them nowhere safe to turn."

"Over the past seven years, UN bodies and governments haven't done enough to end the system of apartheid and persecution that has exposed Rohingya to further suffering," Pearson said.

"Ending the ongoing cycles of abuses, destruction, and displacement requires international efforts to hold those responsible to account."

Rohingya are being pressured from all sides in Myanmar and Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said.