Rohingya refugees are increasingly embarking upon hazardous journeys to Southeast Asia to escape the dangers of an uncertain life in the refugee camps of eastern Bangladesh, according to reports.
In early December, around 150 such refugees were stranded at sea off Thailand’s coast after their boat broke down. Rights activists suspect that many may have died and requested the country’s authorities to rescue the survivors.
The episode came on the heels of a number of similar incidents to have occurred intermittently over the past two years. Late in 2021, for instance, there was a standoff involving a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and the Indonesian navy, which ended after 18 hours with a rescue of the refugees by the navy.
The trail to Southeast Asia and the Middle East from refugee camps in Bangladesh and the Rohingya-inhabited region of Myanmar’s Rakhine State began decades ago, after the Myanmar military launched Operation Dragon King (Nagamin) against Rohingya in the late 1970s.
Several more military operations followed in the decades thereafter, compelling hundreds of Rohingya to relocate to Bangladesh and other countries.
The biggest exodus was in 2017, when the Myanmar military launched attacks that forced more than 700,000 people to cross the border into Bangladesh, where most now remain.
The Rohingyas, a Muslim minority group living predominantly in Rakhine State, are often described as the world’s most persecuted people. They have been at the receiving end of institutionalized discrimination and repression by Myanmar’s ethnic Bamar-dominated military.
More than 1 million Rohingya refugees are lodged at the camps in Cox’s Bazar. An uncertain future coupled with the squalid conditions in the camps here have prompted an increasing number of refugees to undertake hazardous journeys to Southeast Asia.
