Confined to tents, Rohingya hold silent protest on genocide anniversary

Nearly a million Rohingya refugees stuck in Bangladesh are marking three years since their escape from Myanmar in a day-long "silent protest" inside their flimsy, leaky huts.

An August 2017 military operation, that has triggered genocide charges at the UN's top court, drove 750,000 Rohingya out of Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh, to join 200,000 who fled earlier.

Three years later and with no work or decent education for their children, there is little prospect of a return to the country, where members of the mostly Muslim minority have long been treated as inferior intruders.

Tuesday's protest is being held inside tiny tents due to coronavirus restructions on the squalid camp in Bangladesh.

Protest ban

Myanmar's military "killed more than 10,000 of our people. They carried out mass murders and rapes and drove our people from their home", Mohibullah, a Rohingya leader in the camps, said.

For the second anniversary last year, Mohibullah led a rally of about 200,000 protesters at Kutupalong, the largest of the network of camps in southeast Bangladesh, where 600,000 people live in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

But the Bangladeshi authorities, increasingly impatient with the Rohingya and who a year ago cut internet access in the camps, have banned gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic. Bangladesh is expected to lift internet restrictions on Tuesday.

The sprawling camps have been cut off from the rest of Bangladesh, with the military erecting barbed-wire fences around the perimeters. Inside, movement has been restricted.

Fears the deadly virus could spread like wildfire, because physical distancing is almost impossible, have not been borne out, with just 84 infections confirmed and six deaths.

The Rohingya will mark "Genocide Remembrance Day" with silence and prayers in their rickety homes all day, Mohibullah said.

"There will be no rallies, no work, no prayers at mosques, no NGO or aid activities, no schools, no madrasas and no food distribution," he added.

'Apartheid'

Bangladesh has signed an agreement with Myanmar to return the refugees. But the Rohingya refuse to go without guarantees for their safety and proper rights.

About 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar, but most are not regarded as citizens, living in what Amnesty International describes as "apartheid" conditions.

The Rohingya are not convinced of the "sincerity of the Myanmar authorities", Bangladesh foreign secretary Masud bin Momen said.

Khin Maung, a 25-year-old Rohingya activist who lost 10 relatives in the horrors of 2017, said the mood in the camps was very depressed.

"We want justice for the murders. We also want to go back home. But I don't see any immediate hopes. It may take years," Maung, who leads a Rohingya youth group, said.

He said the desperation had led hundreds to flee the camps this year on rickety boats often arranged by unscrupulous trafficking gangs.

At least 24 refugees are believed to have drowned off Malaysia last month in the latest in a string of tragedies. The lone survivor managed to swim to shore.

"Myanmar needs to accept an international solution that provides for the safe, voluntary return of Rohingya refugees, while an understandably stretched Bangladesh should not make conditions inhospitable for refugees who have nowhere to go," said Brad Adams from Human Rights Watch.

READ MORE: Three years after exodus, global neglect leaves Rohingya stranded in camps

Bangladesh to lift internet ban

Bangladesh will lift internet restrictions imposed on nearly a million Rohingya refugees, a senior official said on Monday.

The Bangladesh government has been under pressure from the United Nations and aid groups to end the restrictions over fears they are hampering efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus and provide a basic education to thousands of children.

Since last year, Rohingya refugees have only been able to access slower 2G internet, making it hard for them to stay in touch with relatives elsewhere or provide even an informal education to children in the camps, where schools are banned.

Bangladesh's foreign secretary said the government had banned high-speed internet in the camps last year because it could be used to spread "baseless rumours and misinformation" that could "create panic and destabilize the camps".

Myanmar military crackdown

Attacks by Rohingya insurgents on police posts and an army base are the military's justification for unleashing a crackdown that forced more than 730,000 Muslim Rohingya to flee mainly Buddhist Myanmar for Bangladesh.

United Nations investigators later concluded that the Myanmar military campaign was executed with "genocidal intent". Myanmar denies that, saying the army was battling the insurgency.

The 2017 arrivals joined more than 200,000 Rohingya already in Bangladesh after fleeing earlier violence, straining resources in one of Asia's poorest countries.

More than 900,000 refugees live in the crowded camps, most in tents, with only limited sanitary facilities.

Myanmar is facing charges of genocide at the International Court.

Refugees International handed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a petition signed by more than 10,000 people urging Washington to formally declare the Myanmar military guilty of genocide.

"As these grim anniversaries continue to go through, there's a risk of that being seen as normalised and just the way things are," said Daniel Sullivan, senior advocate for human rights at Refugees International.

"What happened three years ago is one of the largest and most horrific atrocities of modern times," he said.