Yet many Rohingya remained until the escalation of fighting this year created a new surge of refugees.
“The battle spread from village to village… The bombing was so intense and incessant that the ground trembled for days,” said Mohammad Yasin, a Rohingya boatman, who had reached the Teknaf port in Bangladesh.
“Many people were killed.”
Bangladesh’s leader Muhammad Yunus, who is heading the interim government, estimates some 80,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh in the latest fighting, without giving an exact timeframe.
Abu Bakkar is among them, arriving in Cox’s Bazar in early December.
Bakkar, from a village in Maungdaw, said his wife was killed during his escape to Bangladesh on a terrifying journey where “the bombing didn’t stop”.
He described, like other refugees, seeing AA rebels seize young Rohingya men to fight for them but, as an older man, he managed to escape — paying an “exorbitant fare” for a boat to Bangladesh.
“The Arakan Army arrived and took young Rohingya men from the villages,” Bakkar said.
“Some managed to escape — I came to Bangladesh with a few of them.”
The Arakan Army has repeatedly denied accusations of targeting Rohingya civilians and of forcible recruitment.
Junta forces have also been accused of forcing young men to fight which, like the rebels, they deny.
AA forces said on Friday they had captured a military regional command at Ann, a huge blow to the military.
‘Increasing the destitution’
Conditions in the already overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh are dire.
Shams Ud Douza, from Bangladesh’s Office of Refugee Relief and Repatriation, said people from other communities have also fled to Bangladesh, including the Buddhist Chakma, Rakhine and Tanchangya.
“The overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, already struggling to accommodate those from previous exoduses, are now overwhelmed with new arrivals,” said Moshor Rof, from the CRRIC-Rohingya Response rights group in Cox’s Bazar.
Mir Mosharaf Hossain, a UN refugee agency official in Cox’s Bazar, said most new arrivals fled “with very few belongings” and require basic supplies, heaping pressure on their relatives.
“As the violence in Rakhine state in Myanmar continues to escalate, Rohingya… have been sharing accommodation, food and other essentials with the new arrivals, increasing the destitution of the overall population,” Hossain said.
© 2024 AFP
