ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES – Around 700,000 refugees who fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh are facing severe movement restrictions, violence and extortion in the Cox’s Bazar camps, making some so desperate that they are thinking about suicide, according to a report released yesterday.
A brutal military crackdown forced over 700,000 Rohingya to flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh in 2017.
Cox Bazar is a town in the southeast coast of Bangladesh. Bangladesh hosts about one million Rohingya refugees who have dim prospects of returning home after a February 2021 military coup plunged Myanmar into turmoil.
Although the Rohingya were regarded by Myanmar as illegal migrants and subjected to systemic discrimination prior to their 2017 exodus, many now perceive living conditions in Bangladesh refugee camps to be worse than what they had left behind in Myanmar, the report by refugee-led civil society organisation Youth Congress Rohingya (YCR) and non-governmental organisation Fortify Rights said.
The report was based on surveys of 241 randomly-selected refugees and 54 in-depth interviews with Rohingya respondents from 30 different camps across the Cox’s Bazar district, as well as four interviews with police officers.
