(25 Aug 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh - 25 August 2024
1. Wide of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar staging rally
2. Various of Rohingyas chanting
3. Various of Rohingyas holding posters, banners while chanting
4. SOUNDBITE (Rohingya Dialect): Mohammed Yoousuf, Rohingya refugee:
“Life as a refugee feels like a life of slavery, and we don't want to continue living this way. Our future vision is to return to our country, live in freedom, and enjoy equal rights and justice, just like everyone else in the world.”
5. Various of Rohingya men and women marching, chanting with banner and poster
6. Mid of Rohingyas chanting slogan from dias
7. Various of Rohingyas chanting with banner
8. SOUNDBITE (English): Mohammad Hassan, Rohingya refugee
“Food is important to save your life. Like this, water is important to save your life and medicine is important to save your life. But nothing is more important than freedom. But nothing is more important than repatriation. Nothing is more important than our native state at Arakan.”
9. Various of Rohingyas praying, some while crying
STORYLINE:
Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar who live in sprawling camps in Bangladesh marked the seventh anniversary of their mass exodus on Sunday, demanding safe return to Myanmar's Rakhine state.
The refugees gathered in an open field at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar district carrying banners and posters reading “Hope is Home” and “We Rohingya are the citizens of Myanmar,” defying the rain on a day that is marked as “Rohingya Genocide Day.”
On Aug. 25, 2017, hundreds of thousands of refugees started crossing the border to Bangladesh on foot and by boats amid indiscriminate killings and other violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Myanmar had launched a brutal crackdown following attacks by an insurgent group on guard posts.
The scale, organization and ferocity of the operation led to accusations from the international community, including the U.N., of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Then-Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered border guards to open the border, eventually allowing more than 700,000 refugees to take shelter in the Muslim-majority nation.
The influx was in addition to the more than 300,000 refugees who had already been living in Bangladesh for decades in the wake of waves of previous violence perpetrated by Myanmar’s military.
Since 2017, Bangladesh has attempted at least twice to send the refugees back and has urged the international community to build pressure on Myanmar for a peaceful environment inside Myanmar that could help start the repatriation.
Hasina also sought help from China to mediate.
But in the recent past, the situation in Rakhine state has become more volatile after a group called Arakan Army started fighting against Myanmar’s security forces.
The renewed chaos forced more refugees to flee toward Bangladesh and elsewhere in a desperate move to save their lives.
Hundreds of Myanmar soldiers and border guards also took shelter inside Bangladesh to flee the violence, but Bangladesh later handed them over to Myanmar peacefully.
As the protests took place in camps in Bangladesh on Sunday, the United Nations and other rights groups expressed their concern over the ongoing chaos in Myanmar.
AP video shot by Shafiqur Rahman
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Негізгі бет Rohingya refugees mark anniversary of exodus. demand safe return to Myanmar
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