Arakan News Agency | Exclusive
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh managed, on Saturday, to foil an abduction attempt by criminal group to kidnap a fellow refugee from a camp in Cox’s Bazar.
Arakan News Agency reporter stated that seven bandits broke into Jadimura camp trying to abduct a refugee, adding that when the people shouted for help, the refugees surrounded the bandits and tried to arrest them, but the bandits opened fire and fled.
The camp official informed the police, who immediately arrived. The police, in collaboration with the refugees, launched an operation to track down the bandits who fled and managed to capture one of them.
A joint team of the Coast Guard and the police raided the camp at midnight and there was a gun fight between the two sides.
The gang eventually retreated from the camp and fled into the jungle. A Teknaf police official said that one rifle, two foreign pistols, three locally made guns, 3,100 rifle cartridges, 14 pistol cartridges, one kilogram of crystal meth (ice) and four liters of homemade alcohol were seized.
The seized weapons and drugs have been handed over to the Teknaf police station, where a case is being prepared, the coast guard said.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are subjected to almost daily kidnappings by criminal gangs demanding ransom. These kidnappings sometimes end with residents finding the body of the kidnapped person murdered after his impoverished family failed to raise the large ransom.
A few days ago, a Rohingya girl was kidnapped in the camps, and a large ransom was demanded from her family. Last June, the body of a Rohingya child was found murdered one day after his abduction after his family was unable to pay the ransom. Authorities in Bangladesh arrested a key suspect in a major network that runs kidnapping operations in Cox’s Bazar.
More than one million Rohingya refugees live in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh, fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar since the genocidal campaign launched by the Myanmar military against them in 2017. The United Nations describes Cox’s Bazar as the largest refugee camp in the world.
