A stalled Rohingya refugee repatriation plan and the start of a judicial process by the West African nation Gambia for genocide charges against Myanmar marked the troubled end of the second year since more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled a brutal Burmese army “clearance operation” in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, crossing over to Bangladesh
The defendants, who include officer-level servicemen, have been detained at local battalions, he said, but declined to give the exact number of soldiers being tried
The Child Rights Coalition Malaysia (CRCM) released its 101-page report after the U.S. State Department alleged in June that Bangladeshi criminal groups were taking Rohingya women from refugee camps at night, exploiting them in sex trafficking and then returning them during the day
In mid-October, Enamur Rahman, Bangladesh’s state minister in charge of disaster management and relief, said 350 Rohingya families or about 3,000 people had responded positively to the government’s request that they relocate to Bhashan Char this month. The island is 21 nautical miles from Noakhali district in Chittagong
The children’s rights group, Save the Children, says a high number of Rohingya refugee children are suffering from severe mental health problems
Some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled a brutal military-led crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017 and sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh say they have not been able to go back to their original villages after returning to Rakhine of their own volition
Following Wednesday’s meeting in New York, Myanmar’s Union Minister Kyaw Tin said his government is working with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the U.N., and partner nations “to implement the repatriation process,” and that Myanmar, China, and Bangladesh had agreed to form a “working group” to address the situation
A brutal military-led campaign of violence targeting the Rohingya in Rakhine state in 2017 left thousands dead and drove more than 740,000 others across the border to Bangladesh where they now reside in sprawling displacement camps
Several repatriation attempts by Myanmar and Bangladesh governments have failed. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said that none of those interviewed among the 3,450 people cleared for repatriation in the most recent attempt were willing to go back to Myanmar because they were concerned over their security
Access to education in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps is limited at the early primary school level. So alternative lifeskills training is being offered to help fill the gap. Teenage refugees are being taught skills that will help them earn money and cope with daily difficulties