Global Courant
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — Six Rohingyas have been killed in clashes in refugee camps in Bangladesh hours after an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor visited the settlements to collect testimony, police said on Friday.
Bangladesh is home to about a million ethnic Rohingya people, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar, which is now the subject of a genocide investigation in the UN court.
This week’s violence was the latest in a series of deadly clashes between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), two rival insurgents operating in the camps.
Mr Faruq Ahmed, a spokesman for the armed police battalion that ensures security in the refugee camps, said five people had been shot dead in a firefight before dawn on Friday.
“All five who died in the firefight are members of Arsa, including a commander,” he said, adding that security in the camps had been increased as a result.
Mr Ahmed said the violence came hours after the killing of Ebadullah, a leader of the refugee community, apparently at the hands of Arsa members.
Local daily Prothom Alo said Ebadullah, 27, was gathering refugees to meet with ICC prosecutor Karim AA Khan, who visited the camps Thursday afternoon to take statements from witnesses to the 2017 Myanmar crackdown.
The insurgent group did not immediately comment on the killings, but its members have been accused of targeting Rohingya civilian leaders who challenge its authority.
Its leader Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi was charged last year in absentia with the 2021 assassination of popular peace activist Mohib Ullah. The latter had regularly spoken out against Arsa’s activities in the camps.
Jununi and other key Arsa leaders are also accused of killing a senior Bangladeshi intelligence officer last November.
The killing prompted security forces in January to clear a makeshift settlement on the Myanmar border that Arsa had allegedly used as a way station for the methamphetamine trade to fund its operations.
Dozens, including women and children, have been killed in fighting in Rohingya camps so far in 2023.
Budget cuts have forced the United Nations Food Agency to cut rations for refugee camps twice in recent months, with aid workers warning the move was likely to worsen the already precarious security situation in the camps.
Bangladesh and Myanmar have made renewed efforts to begin repatriating Rohingya refugees to their home countries, where the stateless minority has been subjected to decades of persecution and denied citizenship. AFP
