Roving Periscope: Rohingyas’ fresh influx worries Bangladesh—and India

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: With the rebel Arakan Army, trying to overthrow the military junta regime in Myanmar, reportedly launching a drone and mortal attack and killing nearly 100 Rohingya men on August 5, Bangladesh—and India—have a reason to worry because of a fresh influx of the Rohingya Muslim refugees, the media reported on Wednesday.

Given the experience, New Delhi is also worried that some of these Rohingyas could sneak into India via bordering states like West Bengal, and melt away in other states, disturbing their demography and peace.

Amid ongoing political instability and economic downturn, after the overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5, Bangladesh is trying to prevent a fresh arrival of stateless and persecuted Rohingya refugees, officials in Dhaka said.

Around one million Rohingya already live in sprawling and squalid relief camps across Bangladesh, most having fled Myanmar in 2017 during a military crackdown, which is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.

The reason behind the latest exodus is an escalating conflict between the military junta-run Myanmar and the rebel Arakan Army near the Myanmar-Bangladesh shared border, displacing many residents from Rohingya-majority Maungdaw township.

“We have information that around 8,000 Rohingya have entered from the Rakhine State of Myanmar into Bangladesh,” interim Foreign Minister Muhammad Touhid Hossain told reporters on Tuesday, without specifying the period in which the refugees had crossed over the border.

But he said a “serious cabinet discussion” would be held this week to work out “how to prevent” more arrivals.

“We are sorry to say this, but it’s beyond our capacity to give shelter to anyone else,” he added.

Bangladesh has decided, in principle, not to shelter any more forcibly displaced Rohingyas, Hossain said.

The situation in China-supported Myanmar has been further inflamed by the military’s forced recruitment of Rohingyas to battle the rebel group, including over 2,000 from Bangladeshi refugee camps.

That has led to alleged reprisal attacks by the Arakan Army against Rohingya civilians.

Watchdog Fortify Rights said in a report in August that the Arakan Army had on August 5 launched a drone and mortar attack, killing over 100 Rohingya men, women, and children near the Bangladeshi border.

The Arakan Army has repeatedly denied responsibility for the bombardment.

Complicating the security situation for Rohingyas in Bangladesh was the ousting last month of the then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India after a Jamaat-e-Islami-sponsored and student-led uprising.

Hasina was replaced by Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is leading the country’s interim government and faces the challenge of bedding down democratic reforms ahead of expected elections.

He pledged to continue supporting Rohingya refugees soon after taking office but said his country needed “the sustained efforts of the international community” to do so.

Yunus expressed sympathy for the persecuted Rohingya but said that Bangladesh could no longer provide humanitarian shelter to additional refugees.

Hossain noted that the border with Myanmar has been sealed, but acknowledged the difficulty of completely securing the frontier.
“It is not fully possible to seal the border,” he said, adding that the government will make efforts to prevent further entry of Rohingyas.

Hossain suggested the need for a communication channel with the Arakan Army, the rebel group that currently controls most of Rakhine state, to facilitate the return of the Rohingyas.

“I think this is the way forward, but we have to assess how much can be done at the state level,” he said.

Since August 25, 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting over a million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar district and most of them arrived there after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and other rights groups dubbed it as “genocide”. Dhaka had also sought foreign loans and USD 1 billion aid from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to tackle the Rohingya issue.

In 2020, amid opposition, Dhaka also shifted thousands of Rohingya refugees from Cox Bazaar to Bhasan Char island.

In the last seven years, not a single Rohingya went back home.