Cox’s Bazar: One day in July, Rafiq slipped out of the world’s largest refugee settlement in the south Bengal and took a small boat across the border into Myanmar. His destination: a devastating civil war in the country he fled in 2017.
Thousands Rohingya According to four people familiar with the conflict and two internal aid agency reports seen by Reuters, insurgents like 32-year-old Rafiq have emerged from camps in Cox’s Bazar that host more than 1 million refugees. out, where militant recruitment and violence have surged this year.
“We need to fight to take back our land,” said Rafiq, a thin, bearded man wearing a Muslim prayer hat who fought in Myanmar for weeks before being shot in the leg Return later.
“There is no other way.”
The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim group and the world’s largest stateless population, began fleeing to Bangladesh in droves in 2016 to escape what the United Nations says is a genocide by the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Myanmar’s long-standing insurgency has escalated since the military staged a coup in 2021.
Many Rohingya have joined groups loosely allied with their former military persecutors to fight against the ethnic Arakan Army militia that has taken over much of Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, from which many Rohingya have fled.
Reuters spoke to 18 people who described the rise of rebel groups in refugee camps in Bangladesh and reviewed two internal briefings on the security situation written by aid agencies in recent months.
The news agency reported for the first time the scale of recruitment by Rohingya armed groups in the camps, which put the total at 3,000 to 5,000 fighters.
Reuters also revealed details of failed negotiations between the Rohingya and the Arakan Army, inducements such as money and citizenship documents offered by the junta to Rohingya fighters, and the cooperation of some Bangladeshi officials with the rebels.
Some of them, including Rohingya fighters, humanitarian workers and Bangladeshi officials, spoke on condition of anonymity or to be identified only by their first names.
The Bangladeshi government did not respond to questions from Reuters, while the junta denied in a statement to Reuters that it had recruited any “Muslims”.
“The Muslim residents requested protection. Therefore, basic military training was provided to help them defend their villages and areas,” it said.
The two largest Rohingya militant groups – the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) – appear to have little popular support in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, say Shahab Enam KhanProfessor of International Relations, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh.
But a security source said the presence of trained Rohingya fighters and weapons in and around the camp was viewed by Bangladesh as a ticking time bomb. About 30,000 children are born in refugee camps every year and live in extreme poverty, where violence is rampant.
Khan said disillusioned refugees could be drawn into militancy by non-state actors and further into criminal activities. “It would also put regional countries in a difficult position.”
Fight for Manudu
Rohingya rebel Abu Avna, who sailed from near a refugee camp to the western Myanmar town of Maungdaw during the mid-year monsoon, said he was housed and armed by junta troops.
In this seaside town, where the military is fighting for control with the Arakan Army, Rohingya sometimes even live in the same rooms as junta soldiers.
“When I’m with the military junta, I feel like I’m standing next to the same people who raped and killed our mothers and sisters,” he said.
But the Arakan Army has the support of the predominantly Buddhist Rakhine community, including those who joined the army to clear out the Rohingya.
Reuters reported this year that the Arakan Army had burned one of the largest remaining Rohingya settlements in Myanmar and that the Rohingya group had reached a “battlefield understanding” with the Myanmar military to fight alongside it.
“Our main enemy is not the Myanmar government but the Rakhine community,” Abu Afner said.
Abu Afner, as well as a Bangladeshi source and a second Rohingya who said he was forcibly recruited by the junta, said the military provided weapons, training and cash to the Rohingya.
The junta also provided the Rohingya with a card proving their Myanmar citizenship.
For some, this is a powerful temptation. Although the Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they have long been denied citizenship and are now confined to refugee camps in Bangladesh that prohibit them from seeking formal employment.
“We’re not in it for the money,” Abu Avner said. “We want the card, the citizenship.”
A June aid agency briefing seen by Reuters showed that about 2,000 people were recruited from refugee camps between March and May through “ideological, nationalist and economic inducements, coupled with false promises, threats and coercion”. The author cannot be named because the case is not public.
Many people involved in the fighting, including children as young as 13, were taken away by force, according to a U.N. official and two Rohingya fighters.
Cash-strapped Bangladesh is increasingly reluctant to accept Rohingya refugees, and a person familiar with the matter said some Bangladeshi officials see armed struggle as the only way for the Rohingya to return to Myanmar. The person said they also believed that supporting the rebel group would give Dhaka greater influence.
Retired Brigadier General of Bangladesh. Gen. Manzoor Khadr, who has visited the refugee camp, told Reuters his country’s government should support the Rohingya’s armed struggle, which he said would push the junta and the Arakan Army into talks and promote the Rohingya’s liberation. return.
Under the previous Bangladesh government, some intelligence officials supported armed groups but there was little coordination as there was no overall directive, Khadr said.
Abu Afna, a member of the group, said many roads were monitored by security checkpoints near the camp in Cox’s Bazar, where dozens of Rohingya were detained earlier this year. Bangladeshi officials took them to a pier overlooking Maungdaw and took them across the border by boat.
“This is your country, you go take it back,” he recalled one official telling them.
Reuters could not independently verify his account.
‘We live in fear’
In Rakhine State, rebels have fought back against the heavily armed and well-trained Arakan Army. But the fighting in Maungdaw has been going on for six months, and Rohingya militants say tactics including ambushes have slowed the rebel offensive.
“The Arakan Army thought they would achieve an overwhelming victory soon,” said a Bangladeshi official familiar with the situation. “Maungdaw has proven them wrong because of the Rohingya’s involvement.”
Earlier this year, Bangladesh tried to broker talks between the Rohingya and the Arakan Army, but the talks quickly collapsed, Khader and another person familiar with the matter said.
Dhaka has become increasingly frustrated with the Arakan Army’s strategy of attacking Rohingya settlements, and the violence has complicated efforts to return refugees to Rakhine state, the two said.
The Arakan Army denies targeting Rohingya settlements and says it helps civilians without discriminating on the basis of religion.
Back in Cox’s Bazar, riots broke out in the refugee camps, with the RSO and ARSA vying for influence. Fighting and shootings are common, frightening residents and disrupting humanitarian work.
John Quinley, director of human rights group Fortify Rights, said the level of violence was the highest since the camp was opened in 2017. Using “threats and harassment” to try to silence their critics, according to an upcoming Fortify report.
Wendy McCanceThe director of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Bangladesh has warned that international funding for the camp will run out within a decade and called for “livelihood opportunities” for refugees to avoid a “huge vacuum that people, especially young people, are being drawn into” Join an organized group to earn income.
Sharit UllahA Rohingya man who fled Maungdaw with his wife and four children in May described struggling to ensure regular food rations.
The former rice and shrimp farmer said his biggest concern is the safety of his family amid the escalating violence.
“We have nothing here,” he said, as children played in dirty alleys and screams flowed like filigree through the camp.
“We live in fear.”
