COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: The United Nations has appealed for aid to deal with a humanitarian crisis unfolding in southern Bangladesh after the number of Muslim Rohingya fleeing Myanmar neared 300,000, just two weeks after violence erupted there.
The wave of hungry and traumatized refugees is “showing no signs of stopping,” overwhelming agencies in the Cox’s Bazar region already helping hundreds of thousands displaced by previous spasms of conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the UN said.
“It is vital that aid agencies working in Cox’s Bazar have the resources they need to provide emergency assistance to incredibly vulnerable people who have been forced to flee their homes and have arrived in Bangladesh with nothing,” the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh Robert Watkins said.
He said in a statement late on Saturday that agencies urgently needed $77 million to cope with an emergency that was triggered when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army base on Aug. 25, prompting a military counter-offensive.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgent group declared a month-long unilateral cease-fire, starting on Sunday, to enable aid groups bring humanitarian aid to those still in the northwestern state of Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
The impact of ARSA’s move is unclear, but it does not appear to have been able to put up significant resistance against the military force unleashed in Rakhine state, where thousands of homes have been burned down and dozens of villages destroyed.
Thousands of displaced people in Rakhine have been stranded or left without food for weeks. Many are still trying to cross mountains, dense bush and rice fields to reach Bangladesh.
Red Cross organizations are scaling up their operations in Rakhine after the UN had to suspend activities there following government suggestions that its agency had supported the insurgents. The UN has evacuated non-critical staff from the area over the past two weeks.
VILLAGES BURNT DOWN
In its cease-fire statement, ARSA called on the military to lay down arms and allow humanitarian aid to all affected people.
Myanmar says its security forces are carrying out clearance operations to defend against ARSA, which the government has declared a terrorist organization.
Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population.
About a dozen Muslim villages were burned down on Friday and Saturday in the ethnically mixed Rathedaung region of Rakhine, two sources monitoring the situation said.
“Slowly, one after another, villages are being burnt down — I believe that Rohingyas are already wiped out completely from Rathedaung,” said one of the sources, Chris Lewa of the Rohingya monitoring group the Arakan Project.
It was unclear who set fire to the villages, located in a part of northwest Myanmar far from where the insurgents launched their attacks last month. Independent journalists are not allowed into the area.
Three Rohingya were killed by land mines on Saturday as they tried to cross from Myanmar, a Bangladeshi border guard said, and an official with a non-government organization said two more were injured on Sunday.
In Cox’s Bazar, a Reuters reporter saw about 40 Rohingya, mainly women and children, arriving early on Sunday after a four-day trek and then a border crossing by fishing boat.
“The sea was very rough but we made it here somehow,” said 25-year-old Rashidullah, one of the group that was looking for temporary shelter on the beach in an area where there is no room left in refugee camps.
The International Crisis Group said in a report that the strife in Rakhine is causing more than a humanitarian crisis.
“It is also driving up the risks that the country’s five-year-old transition from military rule will stumble, that Rohingya communities will be radicalized, and that regional stability will be weakened,” it said.
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has come under international pressure to halt the violence. Critics complain that Suu Kyi, who won a Nobel peace prize in 1991 for championing democracy, has failed to speak out for a minority of her country that has long complained of persecution.
UN appeals for aid as Myanmar refugee exodus nears 300,000
UN appeals for aid as Myanmar refugee exodus nears 300,000
Bangladesh’s Hindu minority in fear as attacks rise and a national election nears
- Among Hindus, fear has grown more pervasive as the Muslim-majority nation moves toward a national election
- Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh have also inflamed tensions with neighboring India
DHAKA: Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old Hindu garment worker, was accused in December by several Muslim colleagues of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. The accusations drew a violent mob to his workplace. He was beaten to death, his body hung from a tree and set on fire.
Across Bangladesh, Hindus watched the recorded images on their phones with dread. Protests erupted in Dhaka and other cities, with demonstrators demanding justice and greater protections. The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, ordered an investigation, and police said that about a dozen people were arrested.
But human rights groups and Hindu leaders say the killing wasn’t an isolated act, but part of a wider surge in attacks on the minority community, fueled by rising polarization, the reemergence of Islamists and what they describe as a growing culture of impunity. Among Hindus, fear has grown more pervasive as the Muslim-majority nation moves toward a national election on Feb. 12.
“No one feels safe anymore,” said Ranjan Karmaker, a Dhaka-based Hindu human rights activist. “Everyone is terrified.”
Surge in attacks
Hindus make up a small minority in Bangladesh, about 13.1 million people, or roughly 8 percent of the country’s population of 170 million, while Muslims make up 91 percent.
The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, an umbrella group representing minority communities, says it documented more than 2,000 incidents of communal violence since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a mass uprising in August 2024.
The group recorded at least 61 killings, 28 instances of violence against women — among them rape and gang rape — and 95 attacks on places of worship involving vandalism, looting and arson. It has also accused the Yunus-led administration of routinely dismissing or downplaying reports of such violence.
When contacted by The Associated Press for a response, an official from Yunus’ press team declined to comment. The administration headed by Yunus has consistently denied claims that it has failed to ensure adequate protection for minority communities and insisted that most incidents aren’t driven by religious hostility.
Previous elections in Bangladesh have also seen increases in violence, with religious minorities often bearing the brunt. But with Hasina’s Awami League party barred from contesting elections and with her living in exile in India, many Hindus fear the worst as they have long been viewed as aligned with Hasina.
Karmaker, the rights activist, said that Hindus are often perceived as voting en masse for one side, a perception that heightens their vulnerability. He said that the community was also gripped by fear because of a culture of impunity, and near-weekly incidents, warning that in some parts of the country the Hindu community was facing “an existential crisis.”
“The individuals involved in this violence are not being brought under the law, nor are they being held accountable through the justice system. It creates the impression that the violence will continue,” Karmaker said.
Islamists reclaim influence
The surge in attacks against Hindus has unfolded alongside the reemergence of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, and its student wing. After years on the political sidelines because of bans, arrests and sustained crackdowns under Hasina’s government, the party sees the election as an opportunity to reclaim influence.
Jamaat-e-Islami anchors a broader Islamist alliance of 11 parties, among them the student-led National Citizen Party, or NCP, whose leaders played a central role in the 2024 uprising.
As concerns grow over what its return could mean for religious minorities, Jamaat-e-Islami has moved to recast its public image, even though it advocates Shariah, or Islamic law. It has organized public rallies featuring Hindu participants and nominated a Hindu community leader as one of its candidates.
Meanwhile, NCP has pledged to support citizens facing religious discrimination and said that if elected, it would establish a dedicated unit within the Human Rights Commission to protect minority rights.
Political analyst Altaf Parvez said that such decisions were largely symbolic. He said that other political parties, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had also failed minorities by nominating only a handful of candidates — a move, he said, that didn’t reflect a genuine political commitment to inclusive politics.
Parvez said a systematic pattern of attacks was taking place in rural areas to inject more fear among the minorities before the vote.
“It will impact the participation of the voters from the minority communities in the next elections too,” he said.
Tensions rise with India
Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh have also inflamed tensions with neighboring India, prompting protests by Hindu nationalist groups and criticism from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
India’s Foreign Ministry recently accused Bangladesh of downplaying a “disturbing pattern of recurring attacks” on Hindus, saying such violence was wrongly blamed on personal or political disputes. Bangladesh, in turn, described India’s criticism as “systematic attempts” to stoke anti-Bangladesh sentiments.
The dispute has spilled into diplomacy and sporting events. Both sides have suspended some visa services and accused each other of failing to protect diplomatic missions. Protests in India led cricket officials to bar a Bangladeshi player from the Indian Premier League tournament, followed by Bangladesh’s boycott of this month’s World Cup in India.
Sreeradha Datta, a Bangladesh expert at India’s Jindal School of International Affairs, said that India’s concerns were “legitimate.”
“Hindus in Bangladesh are a very vulnerable group that can’t defend themselves, and Yunus’ administration is in exit mode and deliberately looking the other way,” she said.
Families demand justice
For those caught in the violence, the losses have been deeply personal.
When word of Das’ killing reached his home village in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district, disbelief settled in among relatives and neighbors. Many said they watched images of his killing on their phones.
“When people say they saw it on their phones, my chest feels like it is going to burst,” his father said.
Das was known as a quiet, well-behaved man. He was also the sole breadwinner for his family, relatives said, and his death has left his wife and mother facing an uncertain future.
His mother, Shefali Rani Das, said the family is seeking justice for the killing.
“They beat him, hung him from a tree, and burned him. I demand justice,” she said.
