Rohingya influx over, says Bangla

Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: The influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh has ground to a virtual halt, officials said on Saturday, almost a month after the eruption of violence in Myanmar which has seen nearly 430,000 flee in four weeks.

Cox’s Bazar, Sept. 23: The influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh has ground to a virtual halt, officials said on Saturday, almost a month after the eruption of violence in Myanmar which has seen nearly 430,000 flee in four weeks.

The Rohingya Muslims have jammed camps around the Bangladesh border city of Cox’s Bazar, stretching government and UN agencies to the limit. But Bangladesh border guards said they have seen no boats carrying Rohingya on the Naf river, which marks the Myanmar border, or in the Bay of Bengal for at least three days.

“Our guards have not seen any Rohingya coming in the past few days. The wave is over,” Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) commander S.M. Ariful Islam told AFP.

The United Nations also said “the influx has dropped” as it gave a new estimate of 429,000 Rohingya crossing the border since a Myanmar military crackdown in Rakhine state was launched on August 25.

Neither the Bangladesh military nor the UN advanced any reason for the dramatic fall in new arrivals.

United Nation agencies had given a daily update on the figure but said it would now only be released every Sunday. “No Rohingya came crossing our side of the border in the past few days,” said Manzurul Hasan Khan, another BGB commander whose soldiers