Arakan News Agency
A Rohingya family of five returned to Bangladesh on Thursday, less than a month after their voluntary return to Myanmar, accusing the Arakan Army of torture and financial extortion.
Mohammed Zubair, a resident of camp 24 in Ukhiya, Bangladesh, and a cousin of the returnee, stated that his relative returned to the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh after the Arakan Army raided their home in Maungdaw in Arakan State and demanded 50 million kyats.
He added that he had previously fled to Bangladesh about nine months ago after being tortured and extorted while working on a business project in Maungdaw, before returning to Myanmar again on July 3.
He further explained that the Arakan Army attacked the home after the family’s return, assaulted other family members, while his cousin managed to escape, deciding to flee with his family again to Bangladesh across the Naf River.
Bangladesh’s Commissioner for Refugee Affairs and Relief, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, confirmed the family’s return, stating, “I heard they returned after being tortured and extorted by the Arakan Army.”
Earlier, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced the return of 82 Rohingya refugees to Arakan State in western Myanmar last week, marking the first known voluntary return since the mass displacement in 2017.
Reports from Arakan State in western Myanmar have also indicated that numbers of Rohingya are returning to the state, fleeing the harsh living conditions in Bangladeshi camps, which host over a million Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar.
Bangladesh hosts over a million Rohingya refugees in camps in the Cox’s Bazar area, deemed by the United Nations as the world’s largest refugee camp, where refugees have been living under difficult humanitarian conditions since fleeing Myanmar in 2017 due to the “genocide” campaign launched by the Myanmar military against them. Their situation has worsened following renewed fighting between the Myanmar military and the separatist Arakan Army in November 2023.
