#Rohingya #refugees #mark #Genocide #Memorial #Day
Thousands of Rohingya refugees held “Genocide Remembrance Day” rallies at a vast network of camps in Bangladesh on Thursday to celebrate five years since fleeing a military offensive in Myanmar.
In August 2017, some 750,000 members of the predominantly Muslim minority poured across the border into predominantly Buddhist Myanmar to escape the attack, which is now the subject of a landmark genocide case before the United Nations Supreme Court.
Today nearly a million Rohingya, half of them under the age of 18, live in rickety shacks in camps where the mud roads regularly become rivers of sewage during the monsoon rains.
Thousands held rallies in many camps on Thursday, holding banners, shouting slogans and demanding a safe return to their home state of Rakhine in western Myanmar.
“Today is the day thousands of Rohingya were killed,” tearful young leader Maung Sawyedollah said as he led a rally in Kutupalong — the world’s largest refugee settlement.
“Only Rohingya can understand the pain of August 25th. On this day five years ago, almost a million Rohingya were displaced. On that day in 2017, more than 300 of our villages were burned,” he said.
“All we want is a safe and dignified return to our homeland,” said Sayed Ullah, another community leader.
“Unfortunately, our screams fell on deaf ears. The international community does nothing. Here in the camps we languish in tarpaulin and bamboo shelters and barely survive on handouts,” he said.
Many shouted slogans also calling for the repeal of a 1982 law that stripped them of their citizenship in Myanmar, where they are widely regarded as foreigners.
– ‘A prison’ –
Several repatriation attempts have failed, and Rohingya refuse to return without security and legal guarantees.
Rohingya community leaders complain that security in camps in Bangladesh — surrounded by barbed wire — is also deteriorating, with at least 100 people killed in violence since 2017.
Many of the killings are attributed to a Rohingya insurgent group, drug smuggling and human trafficking gangs, which find easy recruits among the many bored young men in the camps.
“It’s a prison for the Rohingyas. The life of the Rohingya has deteriorated in these five years,” said a young activist who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation from the Bangladesh police.
“Rohingya shops have been destroyed. We need permission to leave the camps to meet our relatives. We feel unsafe because of the violence and the increasing number of targeted killings,” he said.
A survey of refugees released by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday showed that the camps were becoming increasingly unsanitary.
76 percent of respondents said toilets were overcrowded, up from 38 percent in 2018.
Cases of acute watery diarrhea have increased by 50 percent compared to 2019, and cases of skin infections such as scabies have also risen sharply.
Fires are common. Last year, a massive fire claimed around 15 lives, 560 injured and up to 10,000 families – more than 45,000 people – fleeing.
UNHCR has asked for more funding from the international community.
To reduce overcrowding, Bangladesh authorities have relocated about 30,000 Rohingya to an island, but there are concerns it is prone to flooding.
“Voluntary and sustainable returns are the only solution to the crisis,” said Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen.
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