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| Rohingya children are pictured at the Kutupalong
camp for unregistered refugees in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, Jan. 18, 2017 |
Rohingya boys and girls as young as 11 and 12 spoke of
atrocities they had witnessed that forced them to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state
in recent weeks, with some telling BenarNews they saw Burmese security
personnel burn their siblings alive.
A BenarNews correspondent interviewed at least 19
children during visits to refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, a district in
southeastern Bangladesh where some 65,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from
Rakhine state since early October, according to U.N. estimates.
“The military whisked away my brother and killed him, set
fire to our house, and tortured the women,” said Tasmin Khatun, 11, using a
term that refers to the rape of women.
“We hid in the nearby jungle. I still shudder in fear
when I think about it. I cannot sleep at night,” the Rohingya girl told
BenarNews at the Kutupalong camp for unregistered refugees in Ukhiya
sub-district.
Myanmar security forces have been accused of committing
atrocities against the Rohingya population, such as targeted killings, rapes
and the burning of homes, while mounting a crackdown after the killings of nine
Burmese border guards by suspected militants in October.
Myanmar’s government has defended itself from widespread
international criticism, denying that its forces committed such abuses against
members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority.
Last week, BenarNews reported that 17 of 54 Rohingya
women interviewed at refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar said members of the Myanmar
security forces had raped them.
Thrown into flames
Rohingya youngster Abdul Malek, at the Leda refugee camp
in Teknaf sub-district, said he witnessed Myanmar security personnel throw his
brother into the family’s burning home.
“Military threw my twin into the fire. … They have been
killing everybody by setting fires,” Abdul told BenarNews.
He and the rest of his family members were able to escape
by jumping into a river as security forces shot at them, Abdul alleged.
Zohur Ali, 12, a refugee at the Kutupalong camp,
recounted a similar incident, saying that security personnel snatched his two
small siblings from his mother’s lap and threw them into the flames of their
home that had been set alight.
Zohur’s mother Rahima Khatun, 35, told BenarNews: “Zohur
cries even while sleeping. I do not know when he will recover from this.”
Nazim Uddin, 12, whose mother died during childbirth
several months ago, said he saw his father beaten and arrested by Myanmar
security personnel “some days ago,” before he, four siblings and an uncle fled
across the border.
Two of his siblings, 2-year-old Md Yeasin and 4-year-old
Umme Salma, whom he cradled, remain traumatized, Nazim told BenarNews.
Count under way
An official with the Dhaka office of the U.N. refugee
agency (UNHCR) said it is working to verify the estimate that 65,000 Rohingya
have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh since October.
This number does not include at least 300,000 Rohingya
refugees who live in camps in Cox’s Bazar but who fled violence in Rakhine
state years ago.
“To determine the number of the newly arrived Rohingya,
we have been conducting a survey. So far, we have registered 12,000 new
arrivals including 5,000 children,” the UNHCR official told BenarNews on
condition of anonymity.
Ali Hossain, the deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar
district, told BenarNews the government had yet to count the number of Rohingya
“who entered Bangladesh afresh.” The government, however, has been immunizing
children age 5 and younger at the camps and giving them doses of Vitamin A, he
said.
Md Alam, a leader of Block B at the Leda camps, said
officials were finding it difficult to feed all the children in the camp.
“Where is the time to look after the mental trouble?” he
told BenarNews.
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A Rohingya baby is
vaccinated at the Kutupalong camp,
Jan. 18, 2017. [Jesmin Papri/BenarNews]
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An earlier version
incorrectly quoted Abdul Malek
as saying that his twin brothers were thrown
into a fire.
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“These children are mentally devastated as they came
across a horrible reality; counseling is a must for their mental recovery. But
where is the opportunity? Many of them are not getting food for survival,” C.R.
Abrar, an expert on refugee issues and professor at the University of Dhaka,
told BenarNews.