AFP
Seeing the violence against civilians in Myanmar in the wake of that country’s coup, Rohingya refugees sheltering in southeastern Bangladesh say their own experience has been validated now that the general Burmese population is experiencing the brutality of its military.
Refugee leaders who spoke to BenarNews expressed solidarity with Myanmar protesters, as well as bitterness that they did not receive the same in 2017, when a brutal military crackdown on their community caused 740,000 of the stateless Muslim minority to flee to Bangladesh.
“At that time, if everyone had joined the movement to stop the atrocities against the Rohingya, then they would not have had to join this protest movement,” Muhib Ullah, chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, from the Kutupalong refugee camp this week.