Two leaders of the Rohingya refugee community were shot dead in a camp in Bangladesh that hosts nearly a million people belonging to this Muslim minority who fled Burma, police said on Wednesday August 10.
At least eight assailants, believed to be Rohingya, shot and killed Syed Hossain, 40, and Abu Taleb, 35, two leaders of the Rohingya community, in Camp Number 15 around midnight, police spokesman Kamran Hossain said. .
“
Both were rushed to hospital where they were pronounced dead
,” he said, adding that police had been searching for the attackers and that security had been tightened in the areas. fields.
Around 750,000 Rohingyas fled army abuses in Burma and sought asylum in neighboring Bangladesh in 2017, where there were already more than 100,000 refugees, victims of previous violence.
Read alsoCoup d'état in Burma: terrified, the Rohingyas still support the revolt
Police did not name any suspects, but Rohingya sources told AFP that the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) insurgency, which operates both in Rakhine state (western Burma) and in the camps of Bangladesh, was behind these killings.
ARSA is behind at least five killings in the past three months, including those of three senior Rohingya leaders, two Rohingya sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In June, police charged 29 Rohingyas, including several ARSA cadres, with the murder of Mohib Ullah, a Rohingya leader and peace activist, last September.
Mohib Ullah, founder of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), a community rights group, who was received at the White House, was shot dead outside his office.
His family immediately blamed his murder on ARSA forces, which firmly denied any involvement.
ARSA was also accused of killing six students and teachers at an Islamic seminary controlled by a rival group.
Last month, police said they arrested more than 800 Rohingya suspected of having links to ARSA.
Read alsoBangladesh: tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees demonstrate
According to community leaders, the police asked them to notify them of any reported presence of ARSA cadres in the camps.
The Rohingya survive, crammed into unsanitary camps, and refuse to return to Myanmar, which is predominantly Buddhist, until they are granted citizenship rights.
In March, the United States for the first time acknowledged that Rohingyas had been victims of a "
genocide
" perpetrated by the Burmese army.
