Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Southeast Asia

Rohingya return to Myanmar uncertain, despite rebel control of Bangladesh border

2025-01-07

[BenarNews] The dream of returning home to Myanmar remains uncertain for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh despite rebel control of the border, members of the ethnic group said Friday.

About 800,000 Rohingya fled from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state following a bloody crackdown against members of their stateless Moslem minority group in August 2017.

They joined other Rohingya who had settled in camps in and around Cox’s Bazar, bringing the total number of refugees in southeastern Bangladesh at the time to over 1 million.

Years of negotiations to repatriate Rohingyas to Rakhine state have yielded little progress, in part because members of the community say their safety cannot be guaranteed back home after the military that targeted them seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.

On Dec. 8, rebels known as the Arakan Army (AA),

…the military wing of the United League of Arakan (ULA), the organized ethnic Theravada Buddhists of Rakhine state since 2009. The military government of Myanmar has of course designated them a terrorist organization…

which is battling the junta for self-determination in Rakhine state, captured Maungdaw township and took control of the region’s border with Bangladesh.

The takeover rekindled hope that the Rohingya might be offered safe transport across the border and feel comfortable enough with AA governance to resettle their communities in Rakhine.

On Wednesday, the AA — which controls about 80% of Rakhine state — announced that it would begin allowing people displaced by fighting to return home, after having fully secured the border.

However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
Radio Free Asia Burmese, a news service affiliated with BenarNews, spoke with Rohingya in Bangladesh who said they remain uncertain about their return — in part because it’s unclear whether the AA might accommodate such a move and because ongoing fighting in Rakhine would leave them susceptible to military ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
s.

"It is a time of war, so it is impossible for us to return home," said Mohammed, a Rohingya from Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. "Even if the AA takes over the entirety Rakhine state, our repatriation program remains far off because they are not a legitimate government."

Rohingya who earlier fled violence and persecution in Myanmar said they had been kidnapped and forced to fight in the country’s ongoing civil war for the Arakan Army as well as the junta.

Nearly 65,000 Rohingya have crossed into southeastern Bangladesh since late 2023 amid unrest and violence in Rakhine, according to Bangladeshi officials.

Even if the refugees are allowed to return home, they remain fearful of junta airstrikes, said Europe-based Rohingya activist Nay San Lwin.

"The repatriation program is directly related to the AA because they currently control the area [where the Rohingya communities are]," he said. "Even if the AA gives firm guarantees, the Rohingya people might suffer great losses if the junta carry out airstrikes when they return home. Their repatriation is largely concerned with their security."

DEMANDS FOR RECOGNITION
Rohingya have also demanded recognition of their identity as an ethnic minority of Myanmar, acknowledgment of their Myanmar citizenship and the opportunity to return home "with dignity."

On Dec. 25, more than 100,000 Rohingya in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps protested and called for assistance from the international community, including the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
, in meeting their demands ahead of a return to Myanmar.

"When people in the camps return home, they hope to go back to their original homes," said Mohammed of the Kutupalong refugee camp. "Moreover, we have also asked both Myanmar and international representatives to ensure our rights to freedom of movement, access to education, and all other basic rights. We will not change these demands."

The AA’s seizure of the border has, in some ways, complicated the issue even further.

On Dec. 22, during a meeting on the situation in Myanmar, held in Thailand last month, Bangladesh Foreign Ministry front man Mohammad Rafi Alam told news hounds that the Bangladesh government had urged Myanmar’s junta to "find a way" to settle the border dispute as it would "not engage" with the AA.

A week later, however, Bangladesh security analysts, former diplomats and scholars advised the Bangladesh government to engage with the AA directly and diplomatically. The status of the relationship remains uncertain.

A former district law officer who asked not to be named because of security concerns told RFA that the repatriation of the Rohingya will depend on the ruling administration in Rakhine state.

"Since there is currently no legal framework for the repatriation of the Rohingya, a bilateral agreement is essential for implementing this program," he said.

On Dec. 23, nearly 30 Rohingya organizations worldwide called on the AA to guarantee the rights and security of all communities in Rakhine state, including the Rohingya; establish an interim consultative committee; recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic minority of Myanmar; and adopt and enforce a public code of conduct for AA fighters.

Attempts by RFA to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha for comment on the Rohingya return went unanswered by the time of publishing.

Link

Bangladesh

Myanmar rebel group invades Bangladesh, taking territory in the Teknaf area in the southern-most part of Bangladesh

2024-12-17

[X]

BREAKING:

Myanmar rebel group invades Bangladesh, taking territory in the Teknaf area in the southern-most part of Bangladesh

If the new regime in Dhaka spent less time on persecuting its Hindu minority, maybe they would be able to protect their country’s territorial integrity pic.twitter.com/5sX6yDVpSu
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 15, 2024

Link

Bangladesh

Terror in Rohingya camp as boys kidnapped to fight in Myanmar

2024-09-15

2024.08.29
[BenarNews] Families speak of hiding sons to prevent them from becoming cannon fodder.

Muhammad often stares at this snapshot of his kid brother, Farhad. It’s one of the few pictures he has of the 13-year-old who has been missing for months.

In May, Farhad was kidnapped while coming home from his school inside Bangladesh’s sprawling Balukhali refugee camp. (Both brothers’ names along with those of other camp residents have been changed to protect their safety.) Farhad and his four brothers had lived in the camp since August 2017 after fleeing a bloody military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar.

"I’m not just like his brother," Muhammad, 26, told Radio Free Asia in June. "I’m like his father; he’s like my son."

In the weeks after Farhad’s disappearance, a desperate Muhammad pieced together some of his brother’s movements through a handful of phone calls with him. But there have been far more questions than answers.

While Muhammad didn’t know who exactly kidnapped Farhad, the camp in Cox’s Bazar is overrun by gangs. Several of these have been abducting Rohingya and smuggling them back across the border to fight in the war raging inside Myanmar.

Along with other forms of violence, abductions have long plagued the camps. Men and women are trafficked for labor or sex work, leaders are kidnapped as punishment for their advocacy and sometimes refugees are kidnapped simply to extort funds from their family.

But starting earlier this year, a different form of kidnapping became common. Facing mounting battlefield losses, Myanmar’s military government announced in February that it would begin enforcing a long-dormant conscription law.

In Rakhine state, where the junta is fighting a number of resistance groups, its efforts to add soldiers have not stopped at the border. Just to the north, the Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, camps, with their large, trapped refugee population and entrenched criminal enterprises, appear to have become feeder lots for the military — and for its opposing forces.

In their phone calls, Farhad told Muhammad that he had been smuggled into Rakhine state and taken south to Buthidaung. Later, he was handed over to the Myanmar military, which placed him in a training camp with about 40 other Rohingya men and boys. For the first two weeks, Farhad was given arms training, but eventually, he was pulled out of formal training and ordered to assist with cooking and running errands for soldiers, he told his brother on the phone.

"The abduction and forced conscription in Myanmar and in the camps — it’s one of those things that’s so horrific that even though everything is already so terrible for them... here things are getting worse again," said Jessica Olney, an independent analyst who has covered the Rohingya refugee crisis for years and in May published a paper for the United States Institute of Peace on conditions inside the camp.

Kidnappings including Farhad’s have changed the contours of life in the refugee camps, instilling a new form of terror among a deeply traumatized population. Shops are staying closed, as are doors. Roads that were once crowded with children playing and young men milling around have gone quiet. The appearance of an outsider brings only looks of distrust. Many families have taken to hiding their sons, brothers and nephews.

Since Farhad’s abduction, his classmates have lived in fear of becoming the next victim, according to Muhammad. "Most of the students are afraid," he said. "But it’s kind of a new normal now."

’NOW OUR OWN PEOPLE TORTURE US’
An ethnic Moslem minority, Rohingya have long faced violence and persecution in their native Myanmar where they are not legally recognized as citizens. For decades, many who fled wound up inside the dozens of camps in Cox’s Bazar — a city on the coast of Bangladesh named for an 18th century British colonial who managed refugee resettlements.

The bloodshed reached a crescendo in August 2017, when a Myanmar military campaign of rape, arson and murder sent more than 740,000 Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh. The U.S., U.N. and others have classified those attacks a genocide.

Today, more than 1 million Rohingya live inside these tightly packed camps of tarps and bamboo where Muhammad and his family have tried to eke out an existence.

But the Bangladesh government still views the Rohingya as temporary residents and conditions inside the camps are bleak.

Landslides and fires regularly kill while a lack of sanitation and clean water means scabies, cholera and other diseases are disturbingly common. Schooling and health care are hard to come by, there’s not enough food and almost no one is legally allowed to hold a job.

Added to these challenges is a worsening security situation — sending more people fleeing from the camps. Abductions and arson have become commonplace, as have drugs, human trafficking and extortion. Last year, at least 90 people were killed in the Cox’s Bazar camps amid fights over criminal territory.

Still, a steady stream of Rohingya have nowhere to go but Cox’s Bazar. Back in Myanmar, the war in Rakhine state may be edging toward another genocide, according to observers. Amnesty International this month warned the latest attacks, in which fleeing civilians were bombed, "bear a terrifying resemblance to the atrocities of August 2017."

The situation has made Rohingya doubly vulnerable to criminals: Those fleeing Myanmar must pay off smugglers to get them to Cox’s Bazar. At the same time, those trying to leave the refugee camps — via a risky sea voyage to Malaysia or Indonesia — must also pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the traffickers.

Often, the traffickers are tied to gangs controlling the camps. The largest of these groups originated inside Myanmar as murderous Moslem Rohingya movements but have expanded operations into crimes outside the country’s borders.

The kidnappings of men and even boys to serve as fighters, assistants and cannon fodder for both the junta and its opposing forces — or to sell back to their desperate families — appears to have become yet another source of their revenue, Rohingya refugees told Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews.

Moustafa, another refugee living in the camps, used to visit his relative’s tea shop often. The gossip he and his friends shared there represented a rare taste of normality for those whose lives had been repeatedly upended.

Now, such moments are impossible, he told RFA in June. One week earlier, Moustafa was sitting in his usual seat when a group of gunnies grabbed two youths just outside the shop. The kidnappers were thought by Moustafa to be working for the Arakan Army (AA) — the armed wing of the predominantly Buddhist Rakhine, or Arakanese, self-determination movement.

The AA has denied forced conscription, calling such claims "unfounded" in an interview published by The New Humanitarian.

Days after witnessing the abduction, Moustafa was still shaken.

"Sometimes the camp administration sends police, but most of the time they do not," he said. "Living in the camp is very hard now. We were tortured and displaced by different groups [in Myanmar], and now our own people torture us."

While gangs operate inside the camps, chief among them are the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO). Analysts and refugees alike say the militia groups, along with the lesser-known Arakan Rohingya Army, bear the brunt of the responsibility for the conscription abductions.

ARSA first came to widespread notice in August 2017 when it attacked 30 police outposts and army bases in Rakhine, killing at least 12 officers and triggering the brutal military crackdown that followed. The murderous Moslem group gained notoriety in the months and years that followed, including for a particularly ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful attack on a Hindu village that saw scores, if not hundreds, killed.

By 2019, the turbans had turned their attention to criminal activity inside the camps, with a report by rights group Fortify Rights noting that ARSA had begun abducting, detaining and torturing its critics.

RSO, which has been in existence for four decades, has carried out a similar campaign inside Cox’s Bazar.

In the case of kidnappings for conscription, the group appears to have gone after minors.

"We noticed that RSO was doing forced coercion and putting pressure tactics on really different parts of the population," said John Quinley III, a director of Fortify Rights. "There were some cases of forceful conscription of children."

Under international law, it is illegal for children younger than 15 to be recruited or sent to fight, though an optional children’s rights protocol ratified by most countries, including Myanmar, raises the age to 18. Conscription of civilians of any age by non-state actors, such as ARSA and RSO, is also illegal.

In July, Fortify Rights released an investigation detailing how armed Rohingya groups were kidnapping refugees from the camps and turning them over to the junta. Refugees who had been kidnapped and later escaped told Fortify Rights of being nabbed at a market or cafe, brought across the border and handed over to soldiers. One said he had been released only after his family handed over $850.

’THERE IS NO SAFE PLACE FOR US’
The threat of abduction has prompted desperate families to try to move their sons to safety. Given the security situation across Cox’s Bazar, that’s a near impossibility.

In mid-May, Damira sent her 22-year-old son to stay with relatives in a neighboring refugee camp. The family had recently arrived from Myanmar, fleeing violence in Maungdaw that saw their house burned and relatives killed. But their new home inside Cox’s Bazar has offered little sense of security.

"Compared to Bangladesh, the fear inside Myanmar was less," Damira told RFA in June. "We never imagined we would have to hide our son here."

There are almost no protected spaces within the massive, little-policed camps. Bangladesh’s strict controls on freedom of movement for refugees make it almost impossible to leave, Quinley said. And while the U.N. refugee agency can move anyone facing threats from one camp to another, "RSO has a huge presence around all the camps," he said.

It is impossible to know how many children — or adults — have been kidnapped from the camps to fight inside Myanmar. Citing a confidential U.N. report, the Agence La Belle France-Presse news service reported that about 1,500 Rohingya had been forcibly conscripted from the camps as of May.

One local aid worker told RFA he believed 3,000 had been kidnapped, but several humanitarians and analysts acknowledged there was no way to know for sure how many refugees have been sent to fight.

Ali, who crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar seven years ago, told RFA that whatever normality he and his family had managed to carve out in the years since disappeared the moment forced recruitment began.

"For the last few months we have been living in extreme fear," he said. In May, he sent his 16-year-old son to live with relatives elsewhere in the camps. Almost every day since he has heard of a boy being kidnapped for suspected forced recruitment. He is anguished by the idea that he cannot protect his child.

"The day before yesterday, my son told me that the area is also not safe. Every night a group of people have been patrolling. Whenever they spotted a young man, they targeted them to drag them to Myanmar," he said.

"Until death there is no safe place for us."

So far, Bangladeshi authorities appear unable or unwilling to address the security situation. Both Fortify Rights and Human Rights Watch last year released reports revealing widespread corruption, abuse and extortion by the Armed Police Battalion, or ABPn, which since 2020 has been responsible for camp security. Several bigwigs at ABPn declined to comment when reached by RFA, though previously the ABPn defended their record, telling BenarNews last year they had done much to protect those living inside the camps.

AN ENDLESS TRAP
Quinley of Fortify Rights said that RSO appeared to change tactics in May, following protests by women inside the camp and significant pushback from the larger community. RSO has denied both the use of children and a reported shift to going after teachers and leaders, insisting it’s carried out no forced recruitment. In audio messages published by Shafiur Rahman, a journalist who runs Rohingya Refugee News, RSO leader Ko Ko Linn referred to such reports as propaganda and boasted of having thousands of trained volunteers.

"There’s no need for the general public to be afraid or leave the camps," he said, according to a translation by Rahman.

But such claims do little to calm the nerves of those living inside the camps.

Months after his brother’s abduction, Muhammad is no closer to knowing whether it was RSO, ARSA or another group that took Farhad. All he knows is his brother went to school, tried to come home and disappeared.

"I don’t know if he is alive or not because the last time I was able to talk to him, my brother told me that they are out of food," Muhammad told RFA in June. While he spoke, rain pounded at the thin walls of their sparse home, seeping through one edge of the roof. His 4-year-old lay sleeping in the corner.

According to Muhammad, about six weeks after being forced across the border, Farhad managed to escape with three other boys. He called his brother from the jungle, telling him they found a trafficker who could smuggle him back into Bangladesh if given enough money. Muhammad thought the boy’s voice sounded weak and Farhad admitted he was sick. As Muhammad considered how to scrape together the funds to pay for Farhad’s release, his brother became unreachable — he could no longer get through on the phone.

From time to time, when he is feeling scared or stressed or angry, Muhammad dials a now useless number. At the other end, a prerecorded message tells him the phone has been switched off. But this is the last number at which he heard from Farhad, so what else can he do but try it, over and over again.

Link

Southeast Asia

Some 45,000 Rohingya flee amid allegations of beheading, burning in Myanmar

2024-05-27

[Al Jazeera] Escalating violence in conflict-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine State has forced another 45,000 minority Rohingya to flee, the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
warned, amid allegations of beheadings, killings and burnings of property.

Clashes have rocked Rakhine State since the Arakan Army (AA) rebels attacked forces of the ruling military government in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since a military coup in 2021. The fighting has caught in the middle the Moslem minority group, long considered outsiders by the majority Buddhist residents, either from the government or the rebel side.

The AA says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine population in the state, which is also home to an estimated 600,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya Moslem minority, who have chosen to remain in the country.

More than a million Rohingya have taken shelter in neighbouring Bangladesh
[must be pretty bad]
after fleeing Rakhine, including hundreds of thousands in 2017 during an earlier crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.

Link

Good Morning

2024-03-02

Chinese-made Myanmar Armed Forces PTL-02 tank destroyer with a cope cage destroyed by the Arakan Army

03/02/2024

Ship attacked by Houthi rebels sinks in the Red Sea

BettyGrable_228_medium

Syria-Lebanon-Iran Israeli airstrike on Baniyas, Syria, killed Reza Zarei, an Iranian IRGC Navy military advisor		Fifth Column A leftist fitness social media influencer has tattooed the name of the self-immolating far-left U.S. Air Force member on his face
Fifth Column Former soldiers burn military uniforms in Portland		Syria-Lebanon-Iran Hezbollah shoots down Israeli drone in southern Lebanon
Israel-Palestine-Jordan Seven Israeli prisoners held in Gaza confirmed killed by IDF shelling		Israel-Palestine-Jordan Hagari says security forces have killed over 13,000 terrorists since start of war

Norfolk Southern freight train derails in Pennsylvania pushing carriages into river just days after it was revealed CEO got 37 percent pay rise to $13.4 MILLION and one year after East Palestine railway disaster

Link

Southeast Asia

Chinese-made Myanmar Armed Forces PTL-02 tank destroyer with a cope cage destroyed by the Arakan Army

2024-03-02

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Chinese-made Myanmar Armed Forces PTL-02 tank destroyer with a cope cage destroyed by the Arakan Army. pic.twitter.com/PjXa9rBZtd
— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 1, 2024

Link

Bangladesh

3 Arsa members held for killing Rohingya man in Ukhiya camp

2023-03-04

[Dhaka Tribune] Law enforcers held three members Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa)

... in Arabic Harakah al-Yaqin or Harkat ul Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), they’re led by a committee in Saudi Arabia and commanded on the ground by a group of 20 jihadis fronted by one Ata Ullah a.k.a. Hafiz Tohar a.k.a. Jununi, etc., who was born in Karachi and reared in Saudi Arabia. ARSA may or may not be a false-nose-and-mustache front for Aqa Mul Mujahideen, a minor jihadi group linked to al-Qaeda. At any rate, ARSA has the vocal support of al-Qaeda’s Bangladesh offshoot Ansar al-Islam as well as Hizbut Tahrir, and has been running amok in the Cox’s Bazaar refugee camps...

for their alleged involvement in killing a Rohingya man in Cox's Bazar's Ukhiya camp.
They have those Red Kettle things too?
The detainees are Asmat Ullah, Abdur Rahman, and Abu Shama.

Additional Superintendent of Police of RAB-15 Abu Salam Chowdhury said that the joint team of RAB-15 and APBN-8 raided the Rohingya camp no 18 on Friday, and arrested three members of the Rohingya group Arsa.

Ukhiya cop shoppe Officer-in-Charge (OC) Sheikh Mohammad Ali said that some 12-13 masked miscreants had kidnapped the victim, Rafiq, and took him to camp no 11. He was later shot to death.

The dear departed, Rafiq, 35, was a resident of Block A/9 at camp no 19.

The body has been sent to a local hospital for an appointment with Dr. Quincy.

Link

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh’s borderland with Myanmar, 2 Rohingya militant groups fight for dominance

2023-02-03

[BenarNews] A 12-hour shootout and the torching of a refugee settlement along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border thrust the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, an old armed holy warrior group, back into the spotlight.

The fighting last month between members of RSO and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)

...the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army: in Arabic Harakah al-Yaqin or Harkat ul Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), they’re led by a committee in Saudi Arabia and commanded on the ground by a group of 20 jihadis fronted by one Ata Ullah a.k.a. Hafiz Tohar a.k.a. Jununi, etc., who was born in Karachi and reared in Saudi Arabia. ARSA may or may not be a false-nose-and-mustache front for Aqa Mul Mujahideen, a minor jihadi group linked to al-Qaeda. At any rate, ARSA has the vocal support of al-Qaeda’s Bangladesh offshoot Ansar al-Islam as well as Hizbut Tahrir, and has been running amok in the Cox’s Bazaar refugee camps...

bandidos holy warriors left at least one person dead and forced hundreds of Rohingya to flee the encampment.

Link

Bangladesh

Rohingya settlement on Bangladesh-Myanmar border torched amid fighting between militant groups

2023-01-19

[BenarNews] A settlement of about 3,000 Rohingya refugees on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border was burnt to the ground Wednesday after an hours-long shootout between Rohingya bully boy groups that left at least one person dead, sources said.

The two gangs engaged one another in a firefight with reports that Rohingya shelters were set ablaze in the no-man’s land along the frontier, causing many to flee for safety into Bangladeshi territory in southeastern Bandarban district, refugees and officials said.

Apart from the report of the one slain Rohingya, at least two others were maimed.

"The camp has been burnt. People are unable to stay due to the gunshots. Now there’s smoke around," Mohammad Rahim, who was among the uprooted refugees, told a BenarNews correspondent who visited the Tambru border area, where the fighting and arson were reported.

Refugees said the violence lasted 12 hours, from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.

"One person died. Many of us have been injured," said Asma, a Rohingya girl.

"Some children were also injured. Our houses have been burnt," she told BenarNews, weeping.

Md. Rahim, a resident of no-man’s land, said he fled to the Bangladesh side of the border to save his life.

"Suddenly, we saw our houses burning. The people could not stay there. The whole area was covered with smoke. Where will we go now?" he said.

In Cox’s Bazar, a neighboring district, a Rohingya association leader said that no one knew as of yet who was responsible for setting fire to the shelters.

"[The fighting took place] far away from the refugee camps on the Bangladesh side. It is closer to the Myanmar side," Khin Maung, founder of the Rohingya Youth Association, told the Burmese Service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), a news service affiliated with BenarNews.

"Reports said the fighting broke out between ARSA and RSO," he said, referring to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, both Rohingya bully boy groups.

Photographs obtained by the BenarNews news hound on Wednesday in Tambru showed two injured men, including one dead man. Both had on camouflage shirts with a patch that bore RSO’s insignia.

According to Khin Maung, there were about 3,000 Rohingya refugees living in the camp in no-man’s land, and there were no more residents there after it was set on fire Wednesday. He said some refugees had fled to Myanmar while others had fled to Bangladesh.

RFA could not independently confirm which group was responsible for the arson.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said he had heard that ARSA rebels may have been involved in Wednesday’s violence near the Burmese border.

"The fighting has happened on the Myanmar side of the no-man’s land. ... One person is confirmed dead. The houses of some Rohingya living along the zero point [no-man’s land] of the frontier have been set on fire," Khan told BenarNews.

"So far, we have come to know that ARSA could be involved in the fighting; they have different conflicting groups. They could have engaged in the fighting."

The minister added that a handful of Rohingya entered Bangladesh territory to escape the festivities.

"We have taken them in our custody. The situation is under control. They will be sent back tomorrow," said Khan.

Bangladesh police officials claimed, meanwhile, that the dead and injured Rohingya lived in the sprawling refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, but they could not explain what these Rohingya were doing in no-man’s land.

The chief of Cox’s Bazar district police, Mahfuzul Islam, said the refugee who was killed, Hamid Ullah, was a resident of Kutupalong camp. Of the two injured Rohingya, one was a resident of the Jadimura camp in Teknaf, a sub-district of Cox’s Bazar, and the other was 12 years old, Islam said.

ARSA, or the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, is the turban group that launched deadly attacks on Burmese military and police outposts in Myanmar’s border state of Rakhine in August 2017.

Those attacks provoked a brutal military crackdown that forced some 740,000 people to seek shelter in southeastern Bangladesh, where they now live in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Link

Bangladesh

Rohingya rebel group ARSA denies killing Bangladesh intelligence officer

2022-12-03

[BenarNews] Rohingya rebel group ARSA

...the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army: in Arabic Harakah al-Yaqin or Harkat ul Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), they’re led by a committee in Saudi Arabia and commanded on the ground by a group of 20 jihadis fronted by one Ata Ullah a.k.a. Hafiz Tohar a.k.a. Jununi, etc., who was born in Karachi and reared in Saudi Arabia. ARSA may or may not be a false-nose-and-mustache front for Aqa Mul Mujahideen, a minor jihadi group linked to al-Qaeda and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO). At any rate, ARSA has the vocal support of al-Qaeda’s Bangladesh offshoot Ansar al-Islam as well as Hizbut Tahrir, and has been running amok in the Cox’s Bazaar refugee camps...

on Friday denied Dhaka’s allegations that it killed a Bangladesh military intelligence officer last month, saying he died during an exchange of fire between Burmese and Bangladesh forces.

Officials in the South Asian country said that officer Rizwan Rushdie and a Rohingya woman were killed by suspected Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army members on Nov. 14 during a counter-drugs operation in no-man’s land near the border with Myanmar.

This was "not [an] accurate account of the incident," ARSA said in a statement.
"It was...someone else"
"We have later acquired audio visual evidences of the incident. We would like to clarify that gunshots were exchanged between Bangladesh and Burmese forces, in which a life of an innocent young mother, just after 11 days of childbirth, was lost and many others were maimed," ARSA added.

On Friday, ARSA said, "our activities are limited within the political borders of Burma."

BenarNews contacted Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal for comments about ARSA’s statement on Friday, but he declined, referring to the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) or the police for their remarks.

The BGB did not take calls, while the communications wing of the military did not immediately comment.

BenarNews also contacted officials at the cop shoppe in Naikhangchhari sub-district where the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) officer and woman were killed.

Inspector Shohag Rana from the cop shoppe told BenarNews that he would not comment on a case under investigation.

"A statement from any organization will not influence the investigation," he said.

"We have been continuing our efforts to arrest the accused persons."

ARSA, formerly known as al-Yaaqin, is the Rohingya Death Eater group that launched coordinated deadly attacks on Burmese government military and police outposts Myanmar’s border state Rakhine in August 2017.

These attacks provoked a crackdown that forced close to three-quarters of a million people to seek shelter in Bangladesh, where they now live in sprawling camps in Cox’s Bazar.

ARSA said Bangladesh authorities were tagging blameless refugees as the group’s members and punishing them.

"[A]ny crimes and incidents happening in the camps such as the latest mentioned incident at zero point, in all such happenings most of the time innocent Rohingya refugees from the camps are labelled as ARSA members and extrajudicially arrested by the authorities."

Zero point is another name for no-man’s land.

Bangladesh police have blamed ARSA for the September 2021 killing of Cox’s Bazar Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah, who had drawn international attention to the refugees’ plight and visited the White House in Washington.

In a report issued in June, Bangladesh police alleged that ARSA leader Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi had ordered Muhib Ullah assassinated because he was popular.

Some refugees also blame ARSA for killing Rohingya leaders who call for refugees to repatriate to Rakhine, their home state in nearby Myanmar.

Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other shoulder......
police told the Agence La Belle France-Presse news agency that ARSA leader Ataullah was present during the counter-drugs operation in which the intelligence officer and the woman was killed.

DGFI has charged Ataullah and 60 others for the Nov. 14 killings, AFP had said.

Link

Bangladesh

2 more Rohingya killed by armed groups in Bangladesh camps

2022-10-28

[BenarNews] Two Rohingya were shot full of holes inside their camp in Cox’s Bazar on Thursday, in the third such killing in the past two days by suspected supporters of the ARSA Death Eater group, according to Rohingya community leaders.

As many as 40 Rohingya have been slain since the start of 2022 by gangs in the sprawling camps near Bangladesh’s southeastern border with Myanmar, police records show.

Armed men entered Camp 17 in Ukhia early Thursday and rubbed out Md. Yasin, 30, and Ayatullah, 40, said Additional Deputy Inspector General Syed Harunur Rashid, the captain of the Armed Police Battalion in Cox’s Bazar.

The brothers of both the slain men also confirmed the killings.

Yasin was killed because he had provided information to the police about men who had cut off his hand and a foot two months ago, said one of his brothers, Md. Hosson.

"For this, they targeted and killed my brother Yasin," Hosson told BenarNews.

"They tried to catch me, but I fled."

Hosson did not give details about the incident two months ago.

Ayatullah was sleeping when men in ski masks came into his room and shot him, said his brother, Salamatullah.

Md. Faruk Ahmed, an assistant superintendent at the Cox’s Bazar police battalion, which oversees security at the camps, said Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) ~~bandidos~~ Death Eaters were behind most of these killings.

"The ARSA ~~bandidos~~ Death Eaters are mainly responsible for the murders at the camps," he told BenarNews.

"We have been trying to eliminate them."

According to the police, at least nine Rohingya, including a child and two camp leaders, were killed by ARSA in October.

ARSA, formerly known as al-Yaaqin, is the Rohingya hard boy group that launched coordinated deadly attacks on Burmese government military and police outposts in Rakhine in August 2017. The raids provoked a brutal Burmese military crackdown that forced close to three-quarters of a million people to seek shelter in Bangladesh.

For years since the 2017 exodus into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladeshi government officials denied that ARSA had a foothold or presence in the sprawling camps, which house about 1 million refugees.

The killings have terrified the Rohingya refugees.

"We are not sure who would be the next target. We are in constant fear," Master Shafiullah, a leader of the Balukhali Camp 9, told BenarNews.

Others living in the area are also running scared.

"Target killings are taking place inside the camps. We the local people have been terrified and helpless," Ayachhur Rahman, a civil society group promoting the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, told BenarNews.

"Those involved in vigilance of camps at night and those providing the police with information about the ~~bandidos~~ Death Eaters are the victims of murders," he said, urging the government to take tougher action against such elements.

Night-time guards were introduced at the camps in October following the September 2021 killing of Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah, who had drawn international attention to the refugees’ plight and visited the White House in Washington.

In a report issued in June, Bangladesh police alleged that ARSA leader Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi had ordered Muhib Ullah assassinated because he was popular.

ROHINGYA REPATRIATION
Meanwhile,
...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had a cup of coffee. Even instant would do...
the chairman of a parliamentary watchdog on foreign affairs alleged on Thursday that ARSA was working hand-in-glove with the Myanmar army.

"[A]RSA has been working in favor of the Myanmar army," Faruk Khan told BenarNews, after a briefing by foreign ministry officials on the progress of Rohingya repatriation and the law and order situation at the camps.

"They have been working against the repatriation of the Rohingya in Rakhine state. They are killing the pro-repatriation people," Khan said.

However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
he did not elaborate on what he meant by the allegation and he did not provide evidence when BenarNews asked him about this.

"The Rohingya people have been getting involved in criminal activities as they have been frustrated over their future. Their repatriation is the only sustainable solution," Khan further said.

"The foreign ministry officials have told us that the Myanmar government now wants to take the Rohingya back. China has [also] been helping us in this regard."

Link

Bangladesh

Bangladesh police: Suspected Rohingya rebels kill another refugee camp watchman

2022-09-22

[BenarNews] A Rohingya volunteer watchman was killed at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar allegedly by Rohingya Death Eaters, making him the fifth victim of such an attack by armed rebels, Bangladeshi police said Wednesday.

While police wouldn’t say whether the suspected assailants belonged to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)

... in Arabic Harakah al-Yaqin or Harkat ul Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee in Saudi Arabia, and commanded on the ground by a group of 20 jihadis fronted by one Ata Ullah a.k.a. Hafiz Tohar a.k.a. Jununi, etc., who was born in Karachi and reared in Saudi Arabia. ARSA may or may not be a false-nose-and-mustache front for Aqa Mul Mujahideen, a minor jihadi group linked to al-Qaeda and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO). At any rate, ARSA has the vocal support of al-Qaeda’s Bangladesh offshoot Ansar al-Islam as well as Hizbut Tahrir, and has been running amok in the Cox’s Bazaar refugee camps...

Death Eater group, residents of the sprawling camps near the Myanmar border insist that it was behind these attacks on the volunteer Rohingya security guards.

A group of 20-25 gunnies attacked volunteer security watchmen early Wednesday morning at the Balukhali camp in the Ukhia sub-district, said Md. Faruk Ahmed, assistant superintendent of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn-8), who identified the dead victim as 35-year-old Mohammad Jafor.

"The gang attacked Jafor around 3:30 a.m. and stabbed him with a sharp weapon," the police officer said, adding that Jafor was later hacked with machetes.

"The rebel Rohingya groups are facing obstacles to committing any offence inside the camps due to the volunteer guards. That’s why they are now trying to challenge the security of the camp through such attacks," he said.

According to the police, including Jafor, at least five Rohingya volunteer watchmen and three camp leaders have been killed since July. According to APBN officials, almost 8,000 Rohingya volunteer for guard duty.

Night-time guards were introduced at the camps in October following the September 2021 killing of Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah, who had drawn international attention to the refugees’ plight and visited the White House in Washington.

In a report issued in June, Bangladesh police alleged that ARSA leader Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi had ordered Muhib Ullah assassinated because he was popular.

Jubair blamed ARSA for killing Rohingya leaders who call for refugees to repatriate to Rakhine, their home state in nearby Myanmar. He said that while ARSA claimed that its members were working to "defend and protect" Rohingya against state repression in Myanmar, they wouldn’t flinch in attacking refugees.

ARSA, formerly known as al-Yaaqin, is the Rohingya Death Eater group that launched coordinated deadly attacks on Burmese government military and police outposts in Rakhine that provoked a crackdown that began on Aug. 25, 2017 and forced close to three-quarters of a million people to seek shelter in Bangladesh.

For years since the 2017 exodus into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladeshi government officials denied that ARSA had a foothold or presence in the sprawling camps, which house about 1 million refugees. But that changed with Muhib Ullah’s killing by a group of button men and other attacks that followed.

Md. Harun, a security volunteer and community leader, told BenarNews about Wednesday’s attack: "We suspect that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army is behind this latest attack."

HASINA ON ROHINGYA REPATRIATION
Earlier, on Tuesday, Bangladeshi border guards and police arrested 22 people, including seven Rohingya refugees, when they were trying to go to Malaysia by boat via the Bay of Bengal.

Teknaf Model Police Station chief Hafizur Rahman said that of the 15, seven were Rohingya and the rest were Bangladeshi nationals. And of the 15 Bangladeshis, five were working as agents to send the remaining 10 of their compatriots to Malaysia, the officer said.

Meanwhile,
...back at the revival hall, Buford bit the snake and Eloise began speaking in tongues...
Bangladesh Prime Minister ~~the loathesome~~ Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums...
on Tuesday again urged the international community and the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
to hasten the repatriation of the forcibly displaced Rohingya to Myanmar, state news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) reported.

Hasina made this call while U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi paid her a courtesy call in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly proceedings.

Hasina also emphasized enhancing the U.N. refugee agency’s activities in Myanmar on Rohingya issues.

Link

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