Multiple boats packed with Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar yesterday were turned back by Bangladeshi border guards, despite appeals by the nation’s opposition to provide shelter to the persecuted Muslim minority.
Thousands of desperate Rohingya from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state have flooded over the border into Bangladesh in the past week, bringing with them horrifying claims of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of the Burmese security forces.
Eight boats attempting to cross the Naf River separating Rakhine from southern Bangladesh were pushed back yesterday after six were refused entry on Sunday, said Colonel Abuzar al-Zahid, head of the border guards in the Bangladeshi frontier town of Teknaf.
“There were 12 to 13 Rohingya in each of the boats,” he said.
Dhaka says thousands more are massed on the border, but has refused urgent international appeals to let them in, instead calling on Myanmar to do more to stop people fleeing.
In the past two weeks, Bangladeshi border guards have prevented more than 1,000 Rohingya, including many women and children, from entering the nation by boat, officials said.
Bangladesh’s main opposition leader Khaleda Zia late on Sunday joined a growing chorus of political parties and hardline religious groups in the Muslim-majority nation calling for the Rohingya to be given shelter.
At least 30,000 have been internally displaced in Rakhine and many have tried to reach Bangladesh over the past month, despite heightened border patrols, and sought refugee among the Rohingya refugee population that already lives on the Bangladesh side.
Samira Akhter said by telephone that she reached an unofficial refugee camp in Bangladesh yesterday after fleeing her village in Rakhine with her three children and 49 others.
“The military killed my husband and torched our home. I fled to a hill along with my three children and neighbors. We hid there for a week,” Akhter, 27, said.
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