In world's largest refugee camps, Rohingya mobilise to fight in Myanmar

REUTERS
By Devjyot Ghoshal and Poppy Mcpherson
November 25, 2024

A Rohingya child walks on the bamboo made bridge at a refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 30, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer Purchase Licensing Rights

Summary

• Thousands of Rohingya refugees recruited from Bangladesh to fight in Myanmar
• Offered incentives by Myanmar junta to battle ethnic Arakan Army
• Some Bangladeshi officials back Rohingya armed struggle
• Many Rohingya disillusioned by poverty, violence in camps

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Nov 25 (Reuters) - One day in July, Rafiq slipped out of the world's largest refugee settlement in southern Bangladesh and crossed the border into Myanmar on a small boat. His destination: a ruinous civil war in a nation that he had fled in 2017.

Armed groups now a threat to Rohingya refugees

THE NEW STRAIT TIMES
October 28, 2021

Rohingya refugees gathering behind a barbed-wire fence in a temporary settlement setup in a "no man's land" border zone between Myanmar and Bangladesh. -AFP PIC

LETTERS: We condemn the heinous murder of six people in a madrasah in an attack at a Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, last Friday.

We abhor the sudden killing sprees in the camps as the authorities could have detected that there were signs of violent groups operating inside.

In Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Trust in Armed Group Grows as Election Hopes Fade

Pulitzar Center

The New Humanitaria

Kyaw Hsan Hlaing and Emily Fishbein

November 05, 2020 

 

Conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has uprooted some 227,000 people since late 2018. Aid access is restricted in many areas. Illustration by Thu Ra Kyaw/TNH.

Many Arakanese in Myanmar’s Rakhine State were optimistic in the lead-up to the country's first openly contested elections in a quarter of a century, in 2015. There’s a stark difference five years on, as 8 November polls are clouded by an escalating civil war and voting cancellations across most of the state.

Rakhine armed group seized Myanmar governing party candidates

Aljazeera
19 Oct 2020

Arakan Army says it abducted three candidates of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party ahead of November 8 election.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced since fighting began in early 2019 and dozens killed [File: AFP] 

 

A rebel group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of three candidates of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s governing party, demanding the release of detained student protesters in return for letting them go.

The governing National League for Democracy (NLD) said the three – Min Aung, Ni Ni May Myint and Chit Chit Chaw – were abducted last week while campaigning ahead of the country’s November 8 election.