Rohingya villages ‘still being attacked’

Attacks on Rohingya Muslims appear to be continuing in Myanmar and it is not yet safe for the hundreds of thousands living in refugee camps in Bangladesh to begin returning home, a senior United Nations official has said.

Many Rohingya want to return eventually to their villages in Myanmar, Unicef deputy executive director Justin Forsyth said during a visit to the immense Kutupalong refugee camp. But they fear for their safety if they were to go back now, he said.

“The situation isn’t safe for the returns to begin,” he said. “I spoke to one young woman who had been on the phone to her aunt in Rakhine in Myanmar. And they were attacking villages even today.”

More than 680,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state beginning in August, after security forces began “clearance operations” in their villages in the wake of attacks by Rohingya insurgents on police posts.

Rohingya have long faced repression in Myanmar.