Bangladesh authorities and United Nations officials should take urgent measures to protect Rohingya refugees facing threats and violence in the Cox’s Bazar camps, Human Rights Watch said today.
According to HRW, Rohingya community leaders and volunteer workers alleged members of armed Islamist groups were increasingly targeting them for extortion and other crimes.
On September 29, 2021, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Mohib Ullah, 46, chair of the front Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), in Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar. His associates said that Mohib Ullah had repeatedly reported threats from armed groups operating in the camps to Bangladesh officials but received insufficient support from the authorities.
“Mohib Ullah’s flight from mass atrocities in Myanmar to then be killed in his place of refuge speaks volumes about the risks that Rohingya activists face every day,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Bangladesh authorities should take urgent measures, with international assistance, to protect Rohingya activists who are defending the rights of refugees.”
