An increasing number of Rohingya are leaving Bangladesh via perilous boat journeys, as rising crime in the refugee camps adds to troubles like a lack of educational and work opportunities and bleak prospects of returning to military-ruled Myanmar
"They repeatedly asked me why I gave their personal details to the police," Ismail, seated on a plastic mat with his left limbs covered in white bandage and cloth, told Reuters at the Kutupalong refugee camp. "I kept telling them I didn't know anything about them and had not provided any information."
"A series of murders of Rohingya men, including some leaders, at the camps have sparked fear and concern about militant groups gaining power, and local authorities failing to curb increasing violence," said Dil Mohammed, a Rohingya community leader in the camps.Police declined to comment on questions about Ismail or the issues at the camps beyond the data they shared.
About a dozen Rohingya men in the camps, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said that ARSA militants, whose stated goal is to fight for and restore the rights and freedom of the Rohingya in their ancestral homeland, were involved in criminal activities in the camps, including human and drug trafficking.
"Among the serious protection incidents reported to UNHCR are abductions, disappearances, threats or physical attacks by armed groups and criminal gangs involved in illegal activities," said Regina de la Portilla, the agency's communications officer in Bangladesh. "For me, ARSA are thugs, hoodlums, hopeless people who now depend on drug peddling and extortion," he said. "They don't have a country, society, and nobody recognises them. That is why they are involved in crimes and life is meaningless to them."
"It's better to die at sea than being killed by terrorists or dying every day living in fear," he said.The police data show that crimes in the camps and the number of Rohingya arrested in Bangladesh last year were 16 times the levels of 2017 - a significant jump even after accounting for the influx of refugees. Police arrested 2,531 Rohingya and registered 1,220 cases last year, up from 1,628 arrests and 666 cases in 2021.
"They are worried about their future. They can't support their old parents," said Ullah, 25, who is Rohingya and lives in the camps. "What will happen when they have kids? The other big issue is that there's no hope of repatriation from here, so they're trying to leave the camps illegally."Reuters spoke with several refugees who returned to the Bangladesh camps after abandoning journeys to Malaysia, via Myanmar, out of trepidation.
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