4 held on charges of killing 2 Rohingya leaders in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – The Bangladesh police arrested four people on Tuesday on charges of killing two Rohingya leaders in a refugee camp.

The Armed Police Battalion (APBN) said in a statement that the four people arrested are also Rohingya refugees, but from different camps in the southern district of Cox’s Bazaar.

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.2 million stateless Rohingya, most of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in their home country Myanmar’s Rakhine State in August 2017.

“Some Rohingya criminals are active in the camps, and they are desperate to establish dominance across the squalid settlements,” Faruk Ahmed, a police spokesman said.

They believe there is no “terrorist group” in the camps, only criminals who engage in extortion, drug trafficking, and human trafficking, he added.

“They want to make a lot of money through illegal activities, and whenever they see any Rohingya leaders as a hindrance to their criminal acts, they go after them and try to kill them,” Ahmed noted.

According to official data, at least 120 refugees have been killed in camps over the last five years.

The European Rohingya Council (ERC) has expressed concern about the safety of Rohingya in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“At least 13 Rohingya have been killed in refugee camps in the last four months,” the ERC said in a statement. It added that among them were eight Rohingya volunteers.

On October 15, a group of about a dozen people attacked and killed two Rohingya community leaders, Maulvi Muhammad Yunus and Anwar Hossain, at camp No. 13.

“We are in a tense situation and fear about our safety and security,” Abdur Rahman, a Rohingya refugee at Camp No. 13, shared.