Bangladesh sends back 90 Rohingya despite violence
COX’SBAZAR: Bangladesh detained and forcibly returned 90 Rohingya migrants to Myanmar, police said on Sunday, hours after Myanmar troops on the other side of the border opened fire on people fleeing the country.
Police intercepted the Rohingya on Saturday after they crossed the “zero line” border zone, where Myanmar soldiers earlier fired mortars and machine guns at villagers making the dangerous dash from Rakhine state into Bangladesh.
The villagers were caught roughly 4 km inside Bangladeshi territory en route to a refugee camp in Kutupalong, where thousands of Rohingya already live in squalid conditions, said local police chief Abul Khaer.
Despite years of persecution, the Rohingya largely eschewed violence.
But in October a new militant group — the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army — attacked Myanmar border posts, sparking a military crackdown that left scores dead and forced 87,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.
The latest violence erupted early on Friday as scores of men purportedly from ARSA, ambushed Myanmar police posts. Remote villages along the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar have seen fierce fighting since then between militants and Myanmar security forces.
The Bangladeshi government has instructed local officials in Cox’s Bazar, the district bordering Myanmar that is home to several large refugee camps, not to allow any “illegal entry” by Rohingya, Abdur Rahman, a senior government official, told AFP.
POPE LAMENTS PERSECUTIONS
Pope Francis has decried the persecution of the Rohingya and is praying they receive “full rights.”
He said on Sunday there was “sad news about the persecution of the religious minority of our Rohingya brothers.”
‘INDIA SADDENED
OVER VIOLENCE’
The ministry of external affairs has expressed sadness over the violence in Myanmar wherein 32 people.
“India is seriously concerned by reports of renewed violence and terrorist attacks in northern Rakhine state... Such attacks deserve to be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” the ministry said in a statement.