Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

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Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh mostly refer to Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMNs) from Myanmar who are living in Bangladesh. The Rohingya people have experienced ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar for decades. Hundreds of thousands have fled to other countries in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines. The majority have escaped to Bangladesh, where there are two official, registered refugee camps. Recently violence in Myanmar has escalated, so the number of refugees in Bangladesh has increased rapidly. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 723,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017.

On 28 September 2018, at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said there are 1.1 million Rohingya refugees now in Bangladesh. Overcrowding from the recent population boom at Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps has placed a strain on its infrastructure. The refugees lack access to services, education, food, clean water, and proper sanitation; they are also vulnerable to natural disasters and infectious disease transmission. As of June 2018 World Bank announced nearly half a billion dollars in monetary support to help Bangladesh address Rohingya refugees’ needs in areas including health, education, water and sanitation, disaster risk management, and social protection.^] On 1 March 2019 Bangladesh announced that it would no longer accept Rohingya refugees. An August 2018 study estimated that more than 24,000 Rohingya were killed by the Myanmar military and local Buddhists militia since the ”clearance operations” started on 25 August 2017. It also estimated that at least 18,000 Rohingya Muslim women and girls were raped, 116,000 Rohingya were beaten, and 36,000 Rohingya were thrown into fires set alight in an act of deliberate arson.

Rohingyas are a Muslim minority in Myanmar regarded by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar for generations and the Bangladesh government has called for Myanmar to take back the refugees. They are denied citizenship in Myanmar and have been described as the world’s most persecuted minority.^[21][22] Myanmar has denied persecuting the Rohingyas.

Since the 1970s Rohingya refugees have been coming to Bangladesh from Myanmar. In the 1990s, more than 250,000 resided in refugees’ camps in Bangladesh. In the early 2000s, all but 20,000 of them were repatriated to Myanmar, some against their will. This respite ended in 2015 and by 2017, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Rohingya refugees were in Bangladesh. Most of the refugees are located along the Teknaf-Cox’s Bazar highway that is parallel to the Naf River, which is the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Most of the refugees are located in or near Cox’s Bazar, a coastal area dependent upon tourism.

Bangladesh blamed the refugees for crime and 2012 Ramu violence in Cox’s Bazar.^[28] Bangladesh also follows a policy of making the country unwelcome for Rohingya refugees.^[29] The majority of the refugees are unregistered, with only 32 thousand refugees registering themselves with UNHCR and the Bangladeshi government. An estimated 200,000+ refugees are living unregistered in Bangladesh. Amnesty International reports have stated that the Myanmar security forces are committing rape, extrajudicial killing, and burning homes belonging to the Rohingya in a December 2016 report. Refugees have been displacing the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. 

 The governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding on 23 November 2017 regarding the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State. Bangladesh’s foreign ministry announced on 15 January 2018 that their government and Myanmar’s had bilaterally agreed on a repatriation deal for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, which would aim to complete the process of repatriation within two years.^[44][45] Win Myat Aye, Myanmar’s Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, also announced that his country would begin repatriating Rohingya refugees beginning on 23 January 2018. Originally, the government of Myanmar agreed to repatriate only 374 Rohingya refugees out of a list of over 8,000 submitted by their Bangladeshi counterparts on 14 March 2018, citing incomplete paperwork as the reason for the slow process,^[48][49] but on 18 May 2018, they announced they would repatriate a total of 1,100 ”verified” Rohingyas from the list.

On 6 June 2018, the United Nations and the government of Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, the details of which were kept secret until they were leaked online on 29 June 2018. The agreement was immediately criticised and rejected by Rohingya leaders, who say it does not address the concerns of their community.

 As of 2020, approximately one-third of refugee Rohingya children were able to access primary education, primarily through temporary centers run by international organizations. UNICEF runs approximately 1,600 learning centers across the country, educating around 145,000 children. Beginning in April 2020, UNICEF and the Government of Bangladesh will enroll 10,000 Rohingya children in schools where they will be taught the Myanmar school curriculum. Since the rapid influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh began in 2017, public health officials have been concerned that a myriad of health issues among the refugees would arise. As predicted, mental health has deteriorated, food- and water-borne diseases are spreading, infectious diseases are emerging, malnutrition is prevalent, and reproductive health for women and girls must be addressed.

Kutupalong refugee camp is the world’s largest refugee camp. It is in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, inhabited mostly by Rohingya refugees that fled from ethnic and religious persecution in neighboring Myanmar. It is one of two government-run refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar, the other being the Nayapara refugee camp. The UNHCR Camp office at Kutupalong is supported by seven international entities: the governments of the European Union, the United States, Canada, Japan, Finland, Sweden and the IKEA Foundation. Although the ”Kutupalong Registered Rohingya Refugee camp,” in Ukhia, is the original camp, ”Kutupalong refugee camp” may also refer to the makeshift camps that have sprung up adjacent to the government-operated camp, although these are not officially part of the refugee camp. Makeshift camps at Kutupalong and surrounding areas have grown to accommodate refugees fleeing Myanmar over the years. In late 2017, due to an unprecedented influx of refugees, the Kutupalong makeshift camp and surrounding camps at Ghumdum, Balukhali, Thangkhali and others swelled rapidly, merging into each other. The International Organization for Migration refers to the collective settlement as the Kutupalong–Balukhali expansion site. The total population of the camps ( including Kutupalong RC & Expansion Camps ) as of April 30, 2020 were 860,175. ( Joint Government of Bangladesh – Population breakdown as of 30 April 2020 )