Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen made the appeal to a five-member OIC visiting delegation led by Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs Ambassador Youssef Aldobeay, who met him in the capital Dhaka on Monday evening. Help
“He [Momen] urged the OIC delegation to strengthen their efforts in relation to early repatriation of the Rohingya people who are currently taking shelter in Bangladesh,” said a statement by the Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry, Anadolu Agency reported.
Bangladesh is now home to more than 1.2 million stateless Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in home country Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017.
Dhaka signed an agreement with Naypyitaw on the peaceful return of Rohingya in Nov. 2017, but in the last three years, several attempts have been made to begin the repatriation, all in vain.
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After the Feb. 1 military coup in Myanmar, uncertainty looms over the already delayed repatriation process.
Bangladesh’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md. Shahriar Alam also briefed the OIC delegation on the current situation of Rohingya refugees during the meeting.
In reply to the call from Bangladesh, the OIC delegation head Aldobeay, however, stressed “international consensus” for any move. He emphasized the peaceful and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya to their home country with their rights and dignity, and urged Myanmar “to move forward.”
On Sunday, the OIC delegation visited the remote island Bhashan Char in the Bay of Bengal to observe the condition of Rohingya refugees.
In reply to the call from Bangladesh, the OIC delegation head Aldobeay, however, stressed “international consensus” for any move. He emphasized the peaceful and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya to their home country with their rights and dignity, and urged Myanmar “to move forward., help help.
A delegation from the general secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday arrived in Bhashan Char of Noakhali and observed its facilities for Rohingyas, who were relocated to the island from the Cox’s Bazar camps.
A five-member team of the OIC reached the island in the Bay of Bengal by helicopter around 12pm on Sunday, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Shah Rezwan Hayat told Dhaka Tribune.
The visit comes at a time when the government of Bangladesh is continuing its efforts to relocate some 100,000 Rohingyas to Bhashan Char from the congested Cox’s Bazar camps to provide them with a better living place.
In four phases, more than 9,500 Rohingyas have so far been relocated to the island, developed by the Bangladesh Navy at a cost of Tk3,100 crore.
An official concerned told Dhaka Tribune that the OIC delegation flew to Bhashan Char from Dhaka and officials at the different ministries accompanied them on the island.
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Later in the day, the OIC delegation team, led by the Assistant Secretary General (ASG) for Political Affairs Dr Yousef Aldobeay, went to Cox’s Bazar to visit the refugee camps there.
They took part in a meeting with 76 Rohingya community leaders held at Ukhiya Rohingya Camp No 4 at around 3:30pm.
Dr Yousef Aldobeay, while talking to the media after the meeting, said that the OIC stands beside Bangladesh over the Rohingya issue.
He said: “OIC has always been on Bangladesh’s side regarding the Rohingya issue. It wants Rohingyas to return to Myanmar with dignity and respect and for that is working to reach an international consensus.”
The OIC delegation arrived in Dhaka on Saturday on a four-day visit
A delegation from the general secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday arrived in Bhashan Char of Noakhali and observed its facilities for Rohingyas, who were relocated to the island from the Cox’s Bazar camps.
A five-member team of the OIC reached the island in the Bay of Bengal by helicopter around 12pm on Sunday, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Shah Rezwan Hayat told Dhaka Tribune.
Incident reports of Rohingya Refugees being trafficked or smuggled have concerningly increased last month, as multiple news sources from surrounding countries including Thailand and Malaysia announce respective crackdowns. Police General Damrongsak Kittiprapas, Thailand’s deputy national police chief, stated last month that dozens of accused Thai officers were prosecuted for their implication in human trafficking on the Thai-Myanmar border, with 33 officials of various ranks involved.
Also, Thai police announced that they have arrested 78 suspected smugglers – mostly Thais – who were involved in smuggling more than 260 migrant workers from Myanmar and other neighboring countries. On the 8th, Yangon police in Myanmar uncovered another group of 100 Rohingyas huddled together and hiding in a multi-story house for months. Last Sunday, 13 Rohingya girls in Dhaka who were promised false jobs were rescued.
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Unfortunately, these trafficking incidents are not new findings. The Myanmar military’s brutal crackdowns on the Rohingya Muslims that have displaced over 1 million since 2017, have powered an inexorable market for human traffickers. In 2018, the UN Migration agency reported that young Rohingya girls in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar are ‘sold into forced labor, accounting for the largest group trafficking of victims.’
This trafficking by criminal gangs forms only a part of the sex trade of Rohingya Refugees. The chain functions as far as India and Nepal, according to Amnesty International. Trafficking is on the rise in the sprawling 6000-acre camps holding at least 900,000 Rohingya who have extremely limited access to basic health and educational services. Police records from Bangladesh report that 529 Rohingya were rescued from trafficking last year in camps near Cox’s Bazar alone.
Already exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous domestic and international unsettlement further cloud the situation for Rohingya Refugees. With Myanmar’s declared state of emergency and the military in complete control of the country, the refugees are fearful of returning to a country now under a military regime. Khin Maung, head of the Rohingya Youth Association in Cox’s Bazar, told The Associated Press: ‘The military killed us, raped our sisters and mothers, torched our villages. How is it possible for us to stay safe under their control?’
Since August 2017, an estimated 716,915 Rohingya refugees fled from Myanmar seeking safety and protection in Bangladesh. The population, including the pre-existing refugee population living in Bangladesh combined with new arrivals, stands at 866,457 as of December 2020.
The majority are reliant on humanitarian assistance including shelter, food, healthcare, clean water, and sanitation. As the situation entered its fourth year, UNHCR and its protection partners strive to strengthen the response mechanisms to address protection needs of the Rohingya refugees, including in a range of key cross cutting issues across sectors, each of which requires regular monitoring. The COVID-19 pandemic is negatively affecting the overall protection environment in Bangladesh. Mitigating the short- and longer- term social protection consequences of the pandemic and ensuring ways to safeguard the resilience and psychosocial well-being of refugee communities, while ensuring that protection and humanitarian space does not contract, is a priority for the UNHCR.
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Access to territory and non-refoulement: Since January 2020, a total of 1,554 refugees have been registered as new arrivals in Cox’s Bazar. While the majority entered Bangladesh after fleeing Myanmar, some had previously sought asylum or stayed in other countries, including 43 in Malaysia, 30 in Saudi Arabia, and 21 in India. UNHCR continues to monitor for any new arrivals of refugees, though throughout 2020 no significant movements across the border have been reported. A group of 306 refugees who were rescued at sea by Bangladesh authorities in May after their boat failed to reach Malaysia continue to be accommodated on Bhasan Char Island, despite the fact that most have family members in the camps.
The UN continues to await a formal response on access to the island to assess the group’s protection needs. A go-and-see visit was organized for 40 representatives of the refugee community in early September and representatives were asked by the Government to encourage refugees to agree to relocate to the facility. Following the visit, the government organized the relocation of refugees from different camps in Cox’s Bazar in December, with some 3,498 refugees being relocated in two movements. The UN Country Team continues to advocate for access to the island to undertake protection and technical assessments, and in line with the Government’s commitment has continued to highlight the importance of obtaining the informed and voluntary consent of refugees prior to any relocation.
Sixty-year-old Mohammed Hossen, a Rohingya from Kutupalong camp, who never thought that he would ever move to Bhasan Char about which he used to hear various negative things.However, well accommodation and better facilities than those of in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhia made him change his mind.
“I never thought I would go to Bhasan Char. But I changed my mind when I came to know about the good accommodation and better facilities there from one of my younger brothers who was moved there in the first batch,” Hossen told The Daily Star at the Boat Club of Patenga from where they set off for the island.
He said his younger brother told him that there is a good environment that helped him make the decision to go there.
Some 2,010 Rohingyas, including Hossen, in the fourth batch reached Bhasan Char in Noakhali’s Hatiya.
They left Patenga on five ships, each carrying around 500, under the supervision of Bangladesh Navy.
Of them, Sultana Begum, 35, was from Balukhali refugee camp.
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“My sister-in-law went there [Bhasan Char] in the third phase. I was in two minds whether to go there or not. But an assurance from my sister-in-law that there exists a better environment than that of in Balukhali refugee camp, I decided to go to Bhasan Char to start a new life,” she said.
Sultana’s two kids are also accompanying her in the journey.
The Rohingyas started boarding the ships at dawn. They were taken to Chattogram in 39 buses from various camps of Cox’s Bazar.
Shamsud Douza Nayan, additional commissioner at Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commission, told this paper that the fourth batch comprising 2,010 Rohingyas reached the island at 1:45pm yesterday.
The first batch of Rohingyas was relocated there on December 4 last year. Around 10,000 Rohingyas are now living at the island’s facility.
Myanmar’s stateless, conflict-scarred Rohingya community are on edge with the return of military rule, fearing further violence in a restive part of the country where others have shown support for the new regime.Much of the long-persecuted Muslim minority have spent years in cramped displacement camps, with no freedom of movement or access to healthcare, living in what rights groups call “apartheid” conditions.
They are still reeling from a 2017 military crackdown that razed entire villages and sent around 750,000 Rohingya fleeing across the border into Bangladesh carrying accounts of rape and extrajudicial killings.
“Under a democratic government, we had a little hope we could go back to our old home,” said a 27-year-old, who asked not to be named, from a camp near the city of Sittwe.
“But now it is certain we will not be able to return.”
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Myanmar and its generals are on trial in a UN court for charges of genocide from the 2017 violence in northern Rakhine state, where the majority of the country’s Rohingya population lived before their exodus.
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing, who now heads the country’s new junta, repeatedly claimed the crackdown was necessary to root out insurgents in northern Rakhine state.
“There is a real risk that (this regime) can lead to new violence in Rakhine,” said Tun Khin, president of the Burma Rohingya Organisation UK lobby group.
Shortly after seizing power, the junta promised to abide by plans to repatriate the refugees from Bangladesh — a scheme that has been in limbo for years.
But “no one believes a word they say,” Tun Khin said.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader ousted and detained by the generals last week, had travelled to The Hague to defend them from genocide charges while in office.
But across the border in Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees have sent messages of support to anti-coup protesters calling for her return.
Myanmar’s stateless, conflict-scarred Rohingya community are on edge with the return of military rule, fearing further violence in a restive part of the country where others have shown support for the new regime.Much of the long-persecuted Muslim minority have spent years in cramped displacement camps, with no freedom of movement or access to health care, living in what rights groups call “apartheid” conditions.
They are still reeling from a 2017 military crackdown that razed entire villages and sent around 750,000 Rohingya fleeing across the border into Bangladesh carrying accounts of rape and extrajudicial killings.
“Under a democratic government, we had a little hope we could go back to our old home,” said a 27-year-old, who asked not to be named, from a camp near the city of Sittwe.
“But now it is certain we will not be able to return.”
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Myanmar and its generals are on trial in a U.N. court for charges of genocide from the 2017 violence in northern Rakhine state, where the majority of the country’s Rohingya population lived before their exodus.
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing, who now heads the country’s new junta, repeatedly claimed the crackdown was necessary to root out insurgents in northern Rakhine state.
“There is a real risk that (this regime) can lead to new violence in Rakhine,” said Tun Khin, president of the Burma Rohingya Organisation U.K. lobby group.
Shortly after seizing power, the junta promised to abide by plans to repatriate the refugees from Bangladesh – a scheme that has been in limbo for years.
But “no one believes a word they say,” Tun Khin said.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader ousted and detained by the generals last week, had traveled to The Hague to defend them from genocide charges while in office.
But across the border in Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees have sent messages of support to anti-coup protesters calling for her return.
More Rohingyas who are willing to go to Bhashan Char will be relocated soon, project director of Bhashan Char project saysRohingyas who now live in Bhashan Char want to see a peaceful environment in Myanmar with the restoration of their basic rights for their early return despite what they say having a far better place than the congested camps in Cox’s Bazar.
“We’re living here [Bhashan Char] happily and peacefully. We’re very happy with the facilities we’ve got here. But we want to return to Myanmar,” Fayez, a 28-year-old Rohingya man, told UNB.
He said he has opened a shop in Bhashan Char that offers tea and snacks and is hopeful of earning a little bit of money through the daily sales.
Fayez is one of the over 7,000 Rohingyas who willingly got shifted to Bhashan Char in search of a better place, including safety and security.
“I’m here with my wife, three children and my mother-in-law,” said the young Rohingya man who entered Bangladesh in 2017 amid military crackdowns in Rakhine State.
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He said they are receiving 10 kilograms of rice per head every month apart from potatoes, sugar, edible oil, salt and other essentials.
The numerous challenges associated with the temporary hosting of persecuted Rohingyas from Myanmar have compelled the government of Bangladesh to plan the relocation of 100,000 Rohingyas to Bhashan Char, Bangladesh says.
Accordingly, 1,642 Rohingyas were relocated to Bhashan Char on December 4 and the second batch, comprising 1,804 Rohingyas, were transferred from Cox’s Bazar to Bhashan Char on December 29 last year.
Rafikul, another Rohingya man, said: “We’re, in fact, waiting to return to our own place in Myanmar. We seek justice. We want to get back our basic rights what we deserve. We’re ready to return home but we’re living in Bhashan Char happily so far as we spent two months here.”
He said those who are being arrested in Myanmar should be released to restore peace in his homeland as their target is to return to home with all their rights back in place.
Rafikul’s parents and sisters are still in a Cox’s Bazar camp as they want to take more time to decide while the number of interested Rohingyas to come to Bhashan Char is growing.
In a VICE World News investigation, Rohingya women share their harrowing stories of being sold to men in Kashmir .Her baby cradled in her arms, Muskan recalls the winter night when she was duped into traveling more than 2,000 miles to be married to a man 30 years older than her.
“My legs were swollen and hurting because of the beatings and intense cold,” Muskan told VICE World News at her house in Kashmir, a stunning but conflict-ridden mountainous valley administered by India. “I felt miserable. I couldn’t see a way out.”
Five years have passed since she made the harrowing journey from her home in Myanmar. But Muskan can’t forget the horror of being held captive in the middle of the freezing winter, locked in a room without a toilet. The traffickers wouldn’t even let her and the other young trafficked women leave to use the bathroom. Muskan said their male captors beat them when they refused to marry complete strangers, often older men suffering from mental disabilities. Many of the marriages were arranged by families who struggled to find a caretaker for these men, she said.
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Muskan, who is now in her 30s, was eventually sold for 100,000 Indian rupees ($1,370) to a 60-year-old farmer in Kashmir who was mentally ill.
During a nine-month investigation, VICE World News tracked the jarring journeys of four Rohingya women who were trafficked from Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state to Kashmir over the past decade. To protect their identities, pseudonyms are used.
In separate interviews, the women said they were tricked by human traffickers who promised them marriages to “young and handsome bachelors.”The four women, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of backlash from the community they now live in, said they were sent from Myanmar via Bangladesh, then handed over to Indian traffickers in Kashmir, who held them for days in appalling conditions. They were denied food and medical care as they begged to return to their families in Myanmar.
After its takeover, the military administration in Myanmar has ‘reached out to Rohingya in Rakhine State which is seen as military junta’s “desire to gradually bring back normalcy” in the Rakhine state giving confidence to Rohingya for return.”Whatever may be the military’s new approach and policy on Rohingya and Rakhine issues, it’ll take time to get a shape,” a diplomatic source told UNB.
He said they need to have patience and carefully assess the gradually unfolding developments in Myanmar.
For voluntary repatriation to commence, officials say, the question of the confidence of the potential returnees Rohingya about going back plays a very important role.
Rohingya at the camps in Cox’s Bazar were joyous at the news of the fall of Suu Kyi.
“This shouldn’t cloud our judgment and mislead us to think that the incumbent military regime will be liked by the Rohingya,” said a diplomat in Dhaka, adding that there is bad blood between Tatmadaw and the Rohingya.
However, he said, if the military decides to gradually normalise the situation in northern and central Rakhine, this will send a positive signal to the Rohingya sheltered at the Cox’s Bazar camps.
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“Such confidence-building measures will at least eliminate the possibility of further exodus of the existing Rohingya from northern Rakhine,” the diplomat observed.
Bangladesh and Myanmar were supposed to have a meeting on Rohingya repatriation on Thursday but it did not happen due to domestic situation in Myanmar.
This first goodwill gesture from the military administration after the takeover towards the Rohingya was reported on Thursday in Sittwe.
The Regional Military Commander of the Rakhine State went to Aung Minglar Quarter, Sittwe and met some Rohingya community leaders and talked to them for about 45 minutes, a source in Myanmar told UNB.
Aung Minglar Quarter is the Ghetto in the regional capital, where a few thousand Rohingya have been languishing since 2012 like 19 other isolated IDP camps in central Rakhine since the anti-Rohingya communal violence of 2012.
The Regional Commander explained the justification of the coup to the Rohingya elders.
He enquired about the condition of the Rohingya community in the Ghetto. Rohingya elders reportedly mentioned “severe restriction on movement” as their main problem.
The Regional Commander gave the hope of easing the existing restriction on movement to the Rohingya.
