Washington (September 5, 2017): The United Nations, in its report, said that more than 120,000 Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since a fresh upsurge of violence in Myanmar on August 25.
The UN report stated that 123,600 had crossed the border in the past 11 days from Myanmar’s violence-wracked Rakhine state.
The arrival of those Rohingya people has raised fears of a fresh humanitarian disaster as already crowded camps in Bangladesh, home to around 400,000 Rohingya refugees before the latest crisis, struggle to cope with the influx.
Many of them are helpless and are sleeping in the open air, while all of them are in dire need of food and water after walking for days to reach safety, the UN’s main coordinator in Bangladesh said in a report.
Bangladesh initially tried to block the refugees, stepping up border patrols and pushing some back into Myanmar.
But in recent days, they appear to have largely given up trying to prevent an influx that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Tuesday was a “big burden” on Bangladesh.
The latest unrest broke out when a Rohingya militant group launched a series of coordinated ambushes on Myanmar security posts in response to what it said was a fresh crackdown.
The Muslim Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants in mainly Buddhist Myanmar and have suffered decades of persecution, according to rights groups.
Unverifiable testimony from those who have fled has alleged tit-for-tat mass killings and villages being torched by the army, Buddhist mobs and Rohingya militants.
At least 11,000 Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus have also fled arson and attacks by militants to camps inside Myanmar, according to the last government update.
Last week the World Food Programme said it was suspending aid in Rakhine state as the humanitarian situation deteriorated.
Bangladesh border officials say those fleeing are also facing the risk of landmines on the frontier between the two countries.
Rakhine has been a crucible of religious violence since 2012, when riots erupted. Scores of Rohingya were killed and tens of thousands of people, most of them from the Muslim minority, were forced into displacement camps.
But the current round of fighting, which broke out when Rohingya militants ambushed security installations, is the worst yet.
Myanmar’s army has said nearly 400 people have died in the fighting that ensued, including 370 Rohingya militants.
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