People of Rakhine Community: Their numbers shrinking in Teknaf
Threats of criminals, influentials blamed
Ma Ching Rakhine, along with her family members, was forced to leave their ancestral home in Teknaf upazila of Cox s Bazar around 10 years ago in the face of threats from Rohingya criminals.
With a Rohingya refugee camp set up on their ancestral land in Dadundagya Rakhine Para, they are now living a tough life in Chowdhury Para Beri Badh area of Teknaf. They live in houses made of plastic sheets with no proper toilet facilities. They do not have safe drinking water either.
Four other Rakhine families, who once lived in Dadundagya Rakhine Para, locally known as Domdomia Rakhine Para, are also with them in Beri Badh area.
LONDON: Four years have passed since Myanmar’s military crackdown drove more than 742,000 mostly women and children of the Rohingya minority over the border into Bangladesh a mass displacement which UN investigators say amounts to genocide. Now, in the wake of the Feb. 1 coup, the Rohingya are again left wondering what lies in store for them. Myanmar s military, known as Tatmadaw, seized power in a bloodless coup on Monday, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Secretary; President Win Myint; and several other senior cabinet ministers just hours before parliament was due to reconvene for the first time since elections on Nov. 8.
Aung San Suu Kyi (Photo by Ye Aung THU / AFP / MANILA BULLETIN)
Around 740,000 Rohingya made the journey from Myanmar’s Rakhine state into the neighbouring country after operations in August 2017 that the United Nations has said could be genocide.
Suu Kyi was the country’s de facto leader at the time and defended the Myanmar military at an International Criminal Court hearing in 2019 into atrocities against the Rohingya, including rape and murder.
The news of Suu Kyi’s arrest spread quickly in the crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh where about one million Rohingya refugees now live.
“She is the reason behind all of our suffering. Why shouldn’t we celebrate?”, community leader Farid Ullah told AFP from Kutupalong the world’s largest refugee settlement.