Dhaka denies new arrivals refugee status and, after a
major crackdown sealed off the ocean routes traditionally used to traffic
migrants to Southeast Asia, many Rohingya are turning to complex smuggling
operations to escape Bangladesh.
"People are desperate to leave the camps," said
community leader Mohammad Idris.
"Those who have money or gold ornaments are paying
smugglers to get them out by air, and those who don't are trying roads."
The Rohingya, who live mainly in Myanmar, are one of the
most persecuted minorities in the world.
Many now live in grinding poverty in Bangladesh's
southeast coastal district of Cox's Bazar, packed into camps that were home to
more than 300,000 Rohingya even before some 70,000 new arrivals poured across
the border after the Myanmar army launched a bloody crackdown last October.
Bangladesh denies them the right to work, and is
proposing to rehouse them on a mosquito-infested island that regularly floods
at high tide.
NEW ROUTES
For years, rickety boats were the main mode of escape for
the refugees who would pay hefty amounts to smugglers to get them to Malaysia
and Thailand.
Those routes were cut off in 2015 when mass graves of
would-be migrants, many of them killed at sea, were discovered in Thailand,
triggering a global outcry and a major crackdown on traffickers.
But the smuggling networks swiftly identified new routes
out of Bangladesh by air and road, using mobile payments to operate
internationally.
Mohammad, an undocumented 20-year-old Rohingya, said he
spent 600,000 taka ($7,700) to reach Saudi Arabia, where he now lives.
"I paid a local friend for a Bangladeshi passport
and other papers. He also helped me pass through the immigration,"
Mohammad told AFP using the WhatsApp messaging service. He asked that his
family name not be used.
As it becomes more difficult for migrants to leave
Bangladesh, many have been forced to head to destinations once considered less
appealing.
Those who cannot afford flights are using buses and even
travelling on foot to escape Bangladesh, going to India before moving on to
Nepal or Pakistan. Some have even settled in the troubled Kashmir region.
There is no reliable data on the value of the trafficking
trade, but estimates suggest it is worth millions of dollars in Bangladesh
alone.
These networks arrange fake Bangladeshi passports and
birth certificates for the Rohingya, a stateless ethnic minority denied
citizenship rights in Myanmar even though they have lived in the
Buddhist-majority nation for generations.
"It's unbelievable how deep the traffickers'
grassroots network is and how smoothly they operate across nations," said
Shakirul Islam, head of a migrants' welfare organisation called Ovibashi Karmi
Unnayan Program.
Migration expert Jalaluddin Sikder said a proliferation
of mobile phone money transfer services in Bangladesh was making it easier for
the traffickers to do business internationally.
"Multinational trafficking rackets are now a phone
call away," said Sikder, who works in Dhaka's Refugee and Migratory
Movements Research Unit, Bangladesh's main private think tank on cross-border
migration.
PAY YOUR WAY
Research conducted last year by a local charity uncovered
complex underground trafficking networks that span the globe, using
sophisticated technology to distribute payments globally without detection.
"They are efficient in distributing the money to all
the key players," said Selim Ahmed Parvez, researcher for the Manusher
Jonno Foundation (MJF).
These, he said, range from "local trafficking
agents, to law-enforcing officers, administrative officials, politicians and
the kingpins".
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite force fighting
militancy and organised crime in Bangladesh, told AFP they were working to stop
Rohingya being smuggled out of the country.
"It (trafficking) is happening here and we're trying
hard to identify the routes and the channels the smugglers use," said
Nurul Amin, RAB commander for Cox's Bazar. But tracking down the smugglers is
only half the battle.
Fears are rising in the camps over a proposal to move the
estimated 400,000 Rohingya to a desolate island in the Bay of Bengal -- a fate
many say they would do anything to avoid.
"We've successfully tackled the boat migration. And
now our focus is on other smuggling routes," said the RAB's Amin.
"But if someone is so desperate to migrate, can you
stop him?"
Source: http://po.st/9VtPhr