Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh hold rallies in camps; demand end to violence, safe return to Myanmar

To mark the seventh anniversary of the military crackdown in Myanmar, tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh held rallies in camps, demanding their safe return to Myanmar, according to Al Jazeera.

In the camps in Cox’s Bazar on Sunday, refugees of all ages held signs and chanted slogans calling for an end to the violence and their safe return to Myanmar. Many of them donned ribbons that said “Rohingya Genocide Remembrance.”

“Hope is home” and “We Rohingya are the citizens of Myanmar,” their placards read, according to Al Jazeera.

The Rohingyas, a mostly Muslim minority in Myanmar, have long been the focus of prejudice and interethnic conflict.

The military crackdown in Myanmar had notably forced the Rohingyas to flee.

After the Myanmar military began a crackdown in 2017, at least 750,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. This crackdown is currently the focus of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Al Jazeera reported. Thousands more Rohingyas, according to reports have reportedly fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks from the Rakhine state in western Myanmar as combat between the military dictatorship and the Arakan Army, a formidable ethnic armed group that recruits among the majority Buddhist population, has escalated.

When Aung San Suu Ky’s elected government was overthrown by the military in February 2021, Myanmar was thrown into chaos.

Mass protests against military rule were sparked by the power grab, and when the military retaliated with force, the protests turned into an armed insurrection.

Earlier on August 22, Human Rights Watch claimed that Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are facing the gravest threats since 2017. According to HRW in recent months, the Myanmar military and the ethnic Arakan Army have committed mass killings, arson, and unlawful recruitment against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State.