Final Call News
Rohingya refugees walk at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 2. Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Bangladesh are condemning the military coup in their homeland and saying it makes them more fearful to return. A brutal counterinsurgency operation by Myanmar’s military in 2017 drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh. AP Photo/Shafiqur Rahman
Bangladesh Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Bangladesh condemned the military coup in their homeland and said it makes them more fearful to return.
A counterinsurgency operation by Myanmar’s military in 2017 involving mass rape, murders and the torching of villages drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh.
Myanmar military takes control, world mulls response
Densely populated camps
Most of the 1 million or so Rohingya in Bangladesh now live in five camps that cover an area equivalent to a third of Manhattan. Over 700,000 live in the world s largest and most densely populated refugee camp, Kutupalong, an area of just 13 square kilometers.
About half of the refugees are children, and there are more women in the camps than men. Most of them live in shelters made of bamboo and plastic sheets, and they are not allowed to work and cannot leave the camps without the permission of the government.
Bangladesh has hosted them in crowded refugee camps and is eager to begin sending them back to Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Several attempts at repatriation under a joint agreement failed because the Rohingya refused to go, fearing more violence in a country that denies them basic rights including citizenship.