Coronavirus keeps Rohingya indoors on ‘genocide’ anniversary

KUTUPALONG (HRNW) – Almost a million Rohingya refugees stuck in Bangladesh mark three years since escaping from Myanmar on Tuesday, with coronavirus forcing them to hold a day-long “silent protest” inside their flimsy, leaky huts.

An August 2017 military operation — that has triggered genocide charges at the UN’s top court — drove 750,000 Rohingya out of Myanmar’s Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh, to join 200,000 who fled earlier.

Three years later and with no work or decent education for their children, there is little prospect of a return to the country, where members of the mostly Muslim minority have long been treated as inferior intruders.