2,000 refugees sent back to Myanmar
COX’S BAZAR (Bangladesh): Bangladesh authorities have forced more than 2,000 Rohingya to leave a remote island where they were hiding out after fleeing violence in Myanmar, officials said yesterday.
The United Nations said 87,000 mostly Rohingya refugees had poured over the border into Bangladesh since the latest round of fighting broke out 10 days ago in Myanmar’s neighbouring Rakhine State.
The vast majority had entered overland or by crossing the Naf border river. But as desperation grew, some were braving the open seas to reach the small island of St Martin’s 9km off Bangladesh’s coast.
Officials said the island’s 9,000 residents, who shared close cultural ties with the Rohingya and spoke a similar language, had been hiding around 2,000 recent arrivals, but were ordered to give them up.
The head of the local council Noor Ahmad said mosque loudspeakers were used to ask residents to hand Rohingya arrivals over to the coastguard.
“They told us to help find the Rohingya by any means and bring them to the coastguard camp,” said Ahmad.
Another elected official, Farid Ahmed, said 2,011 Rohingya, including children, were rounded up at the coastguard headquarters on Sunday evening and taken away.
“Rohingya children were crying. But it is the government order. What can we do?” said Ahmed.
“They (Rohingya) said: ‘Where should we go? They (Myanmar forces) were killing us there. Our houses were burnt. They were firing at us’.”
Both men said the Rohingya had been taken back to Myanmar on boats.
One senior security official said the Rohingya were taken back at night under escort from border security forces.
Bangladesh coastguardsmen had intercepted and turned away hundreds more refugees as they tried to approach the island, the official said.
Bangladesh was already home to around 400,000 Rohingya before the current crisis and had made clear it did not want to take in more.
But it had been unable to stem the flow of refugees desperate to escape renewed violence in Rakhine State, where they said their community had suffered massacres at the hands of mobs and the military.
Officials said the 2,011 Rohingya on the island had all arrived in the last few days.
“They were in different places on Saint Martin’s island and they were herded together,” said district administrator Ali Hossain. AFP