Rohingya seek escape routes from Bangladesh

DHAKA: In squalid camps in Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled violence and persecution in neighbouring Myanmar dream of a better life abroad – and rely on increasingly high-tech trafficking networks to get them there.

Dhaka denies new arrivals refugee status and, after a major crackdown sealed off the ocean routes traditionally used to traffic migrants to Southeast Asia, many Rohingya are turning to complex smuggling operations to escape Bangladesh.

“People are desperate to leave the camps,” said community leader Mohammad Idris.

“Those who have money or gold ornaments are paying smugglers to get them out by air, and those who don’t are trying roads.”

The Rohingya, who live mainly in Myanmar, are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Many now live in grinding poverty in Bangladesh’s southeast coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, packed into camps that were home to more than 300,000 Rohingya even before some 70,000 new arrivals poured across the border after the Myanmar army launched a bloody crackdown last October.

Bangladesh denies them the right to work, and is proposing to rehouse them on a mosquito-infested island that regularly floods at high tide.

For years, rickety boats were the main mode of escape for the refugees who would pay hefty amounts to smugglers to get them to Malaysia and Thailand.

Those routes were cut off in 2015 when mass graves of would-be migrants, many of them killed at sea, were discovered in Thailand, triggering a global outcry and a major crackdown on traffickers.

But the smuggling networks swiftly identified new routes out of Bangladesh by air and road, using mobile payments to operate internationally. Mohammad, an undocumented 20-year-old Rohingya, said he spent 600,000 taka (RM33,000) to reach Saudi Arabia, where he now lives.

“I paid a local friend for a Bangladeshi passport and other papers.

“He also helped me pass through the immigration,” Mohammad said using the WhatsApp messaging service. He asked that his family name not be used.

— AFP Shunned and stateless: Bangladeshi soldiers standing guard over a large group of Rohingya caught while crossing the Naf river from Myanmar in this file picture.