{"id":13342,"date":"2024-03-30T07:12:26","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T07:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/30\/the-night-government-expands-its-violent-reach-in-rohingya-camps\/"},"modified":"2024-03-30T07:12:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T07:12:27","slug":"the-night-government-expands-its-violent-reach-in-rohingya-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/30\/the-night-government-expands-its-violent-reach-in-rohingya-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Night Government\u2019 Expands Its Violent Reach in Rohingya Camps"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/02\/21\/multimedia\/00rohingya-01-vzwb\/00rohingya-01-vzwb-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"The \u2018Night Government\u2019 Expands Its Violent Reach in Rohingya Camps\" title=\"The \u2018Night Government\u2019 Expands Its Violent Reach in Rohingya Camps\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They could not worship freely. The authorities denied their very existence and razed evidence of their historical communities. Then came a campaign of ethnic cleansing that forced them to flee to a foreign country where they crowded into bamboo-and-tarp shelters. There they have waited years for a better life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Instead, a new threat is stalking the roughly one million Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar who have resettled in refugee camps in Bangladesh: a surge in deadly violence from some of their own people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Armed Rohingya groups and criminal gangs involved in the drug trade are so entrenched in the camps, aid groups and refugees said, that they are known as the \u201cnight government,\u201d a moniker that signified their power and the time that they typically operated. In recent months, they have become more brazen, terrorizing their fellow Rohingya and battling one another in gunfights in broad daylight as they fight for control of the camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The escalating violence has become another scourge in the camps, which were already rife with disease and malnutrition, and prone to floods and landslides. Doctors working in the camps say that the number of gunshot wounds they are treating soared in the past year. Accounts in local news media show the number of killings in the camps doubled to more than 90 over the same period. Abductions <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crisisgroup.org\/asia\/south-asia\/bangladesh\/355-crisis-mounts-rohingya-refugees-bangladesh\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">increased fourfold<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSecurity is now our number one concern in the camps,\u201d said Sumbul Rizvi, who represents the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangladesh. By the agency\u2019s count, so-called serious security incidents have nearly tripled in the past year, prompting more and more Rohingya to take <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/05\/world\/asia\/rohingya-refugees-boat-thailand-indonesia.html\" title=\"\">treacherous boat journeys<\/a> to flee the camps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In interviews, residents of the camp widely accused the local police of being ineffective, complicit, or both.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Police officials reject those complaints.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe security situation is totally under control,\u201d said Mohammad Abdullahil Baki, the deputy inspector general of police in Cox\u2019s Bazar, who is in charge of the Rohingya camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But that assessment does not align with the situation in the camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One afternoon last April, a resident of the camps heard gunshots and had a sense of foreboding. \u201cI felt blood rushing to my head,\u201d S.R., whom The New York Times is identifying by only his initials to protect his safety, recently recalled in a house outside the camps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">S.R.\u2019s intuition was right. His father, who was playing with some children in a nearby tea shop, had been fatally shot in the throat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The gunmen, he said, belonged to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, which was unhappy that his father, a camp liaison to the Bangladeshi government, assisted victims and shared information about the groups, including ARSA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, or R.S.O., the other main armed group operating in the camps, ARSA has its roots in opposing the junta in Myanmar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In interviews with more than a dozen refugees, some were afraid to utter the names of the two groups. Even away from the camps, they lowered their voices and referred to the groups by the length of their acronyms: the \u201cfour-letters\u201d and the \u201cthree-letters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They said members of the groups beat, kill, kidnap, rape and extort them for money they don\u2019t have \u2014 claims that both groups deny.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the number of armed groups is hard to pin down, analysts believe there are between five and 15 more or less well-organized groups and gangs operating in the camps now. Most are allied against ARSA, which has lost significant ground over the past year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">R.S.O. was started in the 1980s and lay dormant for years before re-emerging after the 2021 coup in Myanmar. By then, ARSA had become known for abuses against its own community in the refugee camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was ARSA\u2019s attacks on Myanmar security forces in 2016 and 2017 that were used as a pretext for a violent security operation that killed at least 24,000 people and forced <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/03\/17\/world\/asia\/myanmar-killings-monastery.html\" title=\"\">hundreds of thousands of others to flee<\/a> across the border into Bangladesh. The United States has accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">ARSA, initially known as Harakah al-Yaqin, or Faith Movement, had vowed to liberate the Rohingya people from oppression in Myanmar when it emerged in 2013. Now both ARSA and R.S.O. are trying to force their own people under their control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is a disconnect between what these groups say and what they are doing on the ground, particularly when it comes to ARSA,\u201d said Thomas Kean, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, a think tank. \u201cThere is little incentive for them to fight when they can instead stay inside Bangladesh territory, control the camps and make money from illicit activities such as trafficking drugs.\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Bangladesh prohibits Rohingya refugees from working and moving freely. Their predicament has been made worse by the decline in international funding for the Rohingya crisis, with current levels of aid equating to roughly <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/reliefweb.int\/report\/bangladesh\/wfp-increase-food-ration-us8-us10-all-rohingya-refugees-coxs-bazar\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">30 cents a day<\/a> per refugee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMost people don\u2019t want to get involved in these groups or their activities, but if the alternative is for their family to go hungry, then some will feel like they have little option,\u201d Mr. Kean said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Fortify Rights, a rights group, said that by its count of reports in Bangladeshi media, killings in the camps doubled to more than 90 in 2023 from the previous year. In the first eight months of 2023, the number of gunshot wounds treated by Doctors Without Borders had already doubled from 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cArms have become a lot more visible in the camps over the past year,\u201d said Wendy McCance, country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her teams have seen them firsthand. A government building in the camps that some of them were in was locked down last year after armed men entered it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, when Ms. McCance lobbies to fortify schools and learning centers, she worries not just about flash floods but also bullets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the camps, Rohingya women said gunmen have pushed their conservative Muslim ideology on them and pressured them to dress conservatively and not work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One woman, who asked not to be identified over safety concerns, said she believed her husband worked with ARSA. He was also angry with her, she said, because she was making money sewing clothes. One night he became so violent that he bit her breast and she had to get a tetanus shot. She has also found herself caught in the middle of gang rivalries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For Ms. McCance, the situation in the camps was predictable. \u201cRestrict the movement of one million people, and they will find ways to release pressure. You can\u2019t just keep people cattled, surrounded by wire and CCTV,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One man, who also asked not to be identified for fear of his safety, said he had been warned several times to stop his human rights work in the camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then he and his family members were attacked, leaving his brother with gunshot wounds and his father hospitalized. The man said he had tried to talk his younger compatriots out of taking up arms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAs long as Bangladesh is sheltering us, we need to abide by the law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They could not worship freely. The authorities denied their very existence and razed evidence of their historical communities. Then came a campaign of ethnic cleansing that forced them to flee to a foreign country where they crowded into bamboo-and-tarp shelters. There they have waited years for a better life. Instead, a new threat is stalking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/02\/21\/multimedia\/00rohingya-01-vzwb\/00rohingya-01-vzwb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18787,15351,3954,762,4591,7815,1390],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13344,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342\/revisions\/13344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}