COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: A spate of bloody killings is fueling unease in the Rohingya camps on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, where overstretched police are struggling to protect nearly a million traumatized refugees from violent gangs.
Just 1,000 police officers guard the labyrinthine shanties that make up the giant camps and authorities want to more than double the force in the wake of the murders.
Three respected community leaders are among those slain in what police suspect is a power struggle between Rohingya gangs in the refugee slums in camps around Cox’s Bazar.
One, Arifullah, was stabbed 25 times on a busy road in June and left in a pool of blood. The other two were killed in their shacks just days apart by masked assailants.
Police in the crime-ridden Cox’s Bazar district are investigating 21 refugee murders, many in recent months, which they blame on score-settling and turf wars.
Many in Kutupalong, the world’s biggest refugee camp, and others nearby, say the unchecked violence leaves Rohingya families at the mercy of criminals.
“When the gangs come into the camps, people call the police. But they only arrive after the criminals are gone,” said 16-year-old Runa Akter, whose father disappeared in July with a relative who was later found dead.
Police only filed a case after her uncle’s body was found, she said.
“We are scared. We are especially worried about my brother, because there have been threats to kidnap and kill him,” the anxious teenager said. “I don’t want to lose anyone else in my family.”
A police investigator, SM Atiq Ullah, said no suspects had been identified so far.
Criminals have long preyed on the Rohingya camps however.
Police say refugees with ties to Bangladeshi drug and human trafficking networks have sold Rohingya girls into sex and recruited mules to courier methamphetamine.
The scourge has intensified since an army crackdown in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar drove nearly 700,000 of the stateless Muslim minority into Bangladesh last year.
Hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been arrested since the August influx for rape, drug offenses, human trafficking and weapons possession, among other crimes.
Afruzul Haque Tutul, a senior police officer who until mid-August was deputy chief of Cox’s Bazar, said gangs cashing in on the human misery were extorting “huge money” from new refugees desperate for land, shelter and food.
Internal feuds over territory quickly turn deadly.
Among the bodies was Arifullah, one of the “mahjis” or community leaders tasked with overseeing day-to-day camp affairs.
As an English speaker, he met with dignitaries and liaised closely with police — a position of power Tutul says could have irked rivals.
Arifullah’s wife blamed Rohingya militants for the death of her husband who was surrounded and stabbed by a group of men.
She said that Arifullah was a “big critic” of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the shadowy group whose attacks in Myanmar sparked the military reprisals.
Bangladesh denies the militants have a foothold in the camps and the group distanced itself from crime in a rare January statement issued after two mahjis were murdered.
“It is very challenging, and sometimes threatening, being a mahji,” said Arifullah’s right-hand man, Abdur Rahim, who took over four days after his friend’s killing.
Just a day earlier, a mahji in a neighboring camp was savagely beaten by a mob but there were not enough police to deter violence, he said in his bamboo office in Balukhali camp.
Tutul said patrols had been increased but forces were spread thin. Some 1,500 additional officers had been requested from Dhaka, he added.
“Definitely it’s a huge task. We are trying our best to control the area,” he said.
As the body count climbed, Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper in July printed an editorial declaring it “amateurish to hope that less than 3,000 police would be enough” to guard one million desperate people.
The murders and other unexplained crimes have eroded trust in law enforcement and underscored gaps in policing.
On one recent visit, AFP reporters saw a police unit armed with shotguns and sticks patrol a camp near where two men were found dead in July.
But a community leader, who requested anonymity, said: “There are no police after midnight. Even during the day, during their shifts, they often stay in their posts.”
Few officers speak the Rohingya language, further hampering inquiries. Fear has kept mouths shut.
“That is why Rohingyas do not come forward. They are scared. In your town, if criminals or terrorists or robbers were there, definitely you will be scared,” Tutul said.
Aid groups are installing floodlights to improve safety, especially for women, and police checkposts are planned for vulnerable areas of the dense slums.
But Mohibullah, an influential Rohingya leader, said policing such ghetto-like conditions was difficult and crime was inevitable.
“It is very bad,” he said. “But, we think the refugee life is like this.”
Murders leave Rohingya camps gripped by fear
Murders leave Rohingya camps gripped by fear
- Three respected community leaders are among those slain in what police suspect is a power struggle between Rohingya gangs
- Gangs cashing in on the human misery were extorting ‘huge money’ from new refugees desperate for land, shelter and foo
World welcomes 2026 with fireworks after year of turmoil
- Australia holds defiant celebrations after its worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years
- Hong Kong holds a subdued event after a deadly fire in tower blocks
PARIS, France: People around the globe toasted the end of 2025 on Wednesday, bidding farewell to one of the hottest years on record, packed with Trump tariffs, a Gaza truce and vain hopes for peace in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his traditional New Year address to tell his compatriots their military “heroes” would deliver victory in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, while his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was “10 percent” away from a deal to end the fighting.
Earlier, New Year celebrations took on a somber tone in Sydney as revellers held a minute of silence for victims of the Bondi Beach shooting before nine tons of fireworks lit up the harbor city at the stroke of midnight.
Seeing in the New Year in Moscow, Natalia Spirina, a pensioner from the central city of Ulyanovsk, said that in 2026 she hoped for “our military operation to end as soon as possible, for the guys to come home and for peace and stability to finally be established in Russia.”
Over the border in Vyshgorod, Ukrainian beauty salon manager Daria Lushchyk said the war had made her work “hell” — but that her clients were still coming regardless.
“Nothing can stop our Ukrainian girls from coming in and getting themselves glam,” Lushchyk said.
Back in Sydney, heavily armed police patrolled among hundreds of thousands of people lining the shore barely two weeks after a father and son allegedly opened fire on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.
Parties paused for a minute of silence an hour before midnight, with the famed Sydney Harbor Bridge bathed in white light to symbolize peace.
Pacific nations including Kiribati and New Zealand were the first to see in 2026, with Seoul and Tokyo following Sydney in celebrations that will stretch to glitzy New York via Scotland’s Hogmanay festival.
More than two million people are expected to pack Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.
In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display planned for Victoria Harbor was canceled in homage to 161 people killed in a fire in November that engulfed several apartment blocks.
Truce and tariffs
This year has brought a mix of stress and excitement for many, war for others still — and offbeat trends, with Labubu dolls becoming a worldwide craze.
Thieves plundered the Louvre in a daring heist, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.
The world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, the Vatican chose a new, American, pope and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk laid bare America’s deep political divisions.
Donald Trump returned as US president in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global markets into meltdown.
Trump used his Truth Social platform to lash out at his sliding approval ratings ahead of midterm elections to be held in November.
“Isn’t it nice to have a STRONG BORDER, No Inflation, a powerful Military, and great Economy??? Happy New Year!” he wrote.
After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, US pressure helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October — though both sides have accused each other of flagrant violations.
“We bid farewell to 2025 with deep sorrow and grief,” said Gaza City resident Shireen Al-Kayali. “We lost a lot of people and our possessions. We lived a difficult and harsh life, displaced from one city to another, under bombardment and in terror.”
In contrast, there was optimism despite abiding internal challenges in Syria, where residents of the capital Damascus celebrated a full year since the fall of Bashar Assad.
“There is no fear, the people are happy, all of Syria is one and united, and God willing ... it will be a good year for the people and the wise leadership,” marketing manager Sahar Al-Said, 33, told AFP against a backdrop of ringing bells near Damascus’s Bab Touma neighborhood.
“I hope, God willing, that we will love each other. Loving each other is enough,” said Bashar Al-Qaderi, 28.
Sports, space and AI
In Dubai, thousands of revellers queued for up to nine hours for a spectacular fireworks and laser display at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
After a build-up featuring jet skis and floating pianos on an adjacent lake, a 10-minute burst of pyrotechnics and LED effects lit up the needle-shaped, 828-meter tall (2,717-feet) tower.
The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence.
NASA’s Artemis II mission, backed by tech titan Elon Musk, will launch a crewed spacecraft to circle the moon during a 10-day flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.
After years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.
Athletes will gather in Italy in February for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
And for a few weeks in June and July, 48 nations will compete in the biggest football World Cup in history in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
