Rohingyas face prison-like conditions in Bangladesh camps: report

RFA
John Bechtel and Ahammad Foyez
2023.09.22
Washington and Dhaka

Rohingya say movement restrictions are ‘violently enforced’ by Bangladesh security personnel.

Rohingya refugees look on after a major fire which left thousands homeless in the Balukhali camp in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh, Sunday, March 5, 2023.
AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu

Nearly two-thirds of Rohingya respondents have reported that moving around in Bangladesh refugee camps is more difficult than what they encountered in Myanmar, the country they were forced to flee, a youth advocacy group said in a study released Friday.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh say living conditions worse than in Myanmar: Report

THE STRAIT TIMES
Tan Hui Yee
Indochina Bureau Chief
23 Sept 2023

The Rohingya refugees said living in camps fenced in by barbed wire and guarded checkpoints made it difficult to even move around within the camps in Bangladesh's Cox Bazar district. PHOTO: ST FILE

BANGKOK - A brutal military crackdown in 2017 forced over 700,000 Rohingya to flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh. But severe movement curbs, violence and extortion these Muslims now face in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps are making some so desperate that they are thinking about suicide, according to a report released on Friday.

Cox’s Bazar is a town on the south-east coast of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh hosts about one million Rohingya refugees who have dim prospects of returning home after a February 2021 military coup plunged Myanmar into turmoil.