Bangladesh police rescue 16 Rohingya attempting to flee

By Md. Kamruzzaman

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - Sixteen Rohingya refugees were rescued by Bangladeshi police in the southern district of Cox's Bazar while trying to illegally migrate to Malaysia by sea trawler early Friday, according to local police.

"Acting on information from our own sources, we rescued the Rohingya refugees as they were heading to Malaysia by trawler with the help of a trafficking syndicate," local police station chief Provash Chandra Dhar told Anadolu Agency.

He added that the detained are being kept by police for further questioning to seek the higher-up traffickers.

Police arrested a local who is suspected of membership in the trafficking syndicate which is very active in Cox's Bazar, the city holding makeshift camps of 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, he added.

On Feb. 11, fifteen Rohingya refugees died when a boat capsized near St. Martin’s Island in the Bay of Bengal while trying to flee Bangladesh to other countries.

In recent months the flow of attempts by Rohingya to migrate to Malaysia or Indonesia by water has been reportedly risen.

Several attempts to peacefully repatriate Rohingya to their homeland in Rakhine state in neighboring Myanmar have failed in the past year, leading to frustration over their future in the camps and prompting them to choose risky sea routes to illegally migrate to Malaysia, Indonesia, or other countries.

- Persecuted people

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).

More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while over 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report, titled "Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience."

Some 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes were burned down while 113,000 others vandalized, it added.