When Bangladesh continues to bear the brunt of sheltering more than a million Rohingyas, Myanmar is doing little for their repatriation amid the silence of global powers though the Southeast Asian country faces a genocide case.
This month marks the third anniversary of the fleeing of more than 730,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar’s Rakhine State to Bangladesh after a military-led crackdown in response to an attack by militants on Myanmar security posts.
After August 25, 2017, headlines across the world were dominated by the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing to Bangladesh.
Over the last three years, Bangladesh has had to bear the greatest brunt of the worst humanitarian crisis in recent times, resulting from the execution of Myanmar military junta's long term plans of denuding the area of the Rohingya population. Rohingya repatriation remains a far cry - has the world lost interest?
The situation of 6,00,000 Rohingyas still living in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has worsened -- a reality that mocks the International Court of Justice order to prevent the acts of genocide, legal experts and Rohingya activists have said.
In the face of Myanmar’s strategy of doing nothing about restoring normalcy in Rakhine, Bangladesh is demanding the international community to create basic services, safety, security and livelihood options for the Rohingyas who would return to Myanmar.
Over the last three years, the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf have been telling us many stories of failures, successes and uncertainties.