Rohingya Refugees ‘beaten and thrown out of vehicle’ by staffs of Bangladesh Red Crescent Society

By The Stateless Rohingya

TEKNAF: A father of 2-year old Rohingya refugee from the unregistered Leda Camp was abused and severely beaten by staffs of Bangladesh Red Crescent Society after complaining the illegal selling of his relief ticket.

The incident took place on Tuesday, May 23 at 15:00 (GMT+6) within the compound of a local Bangladesh national – Jafar Ahmed’s father, where the Red Crescent has been distributing humanitarian relief to Rohingya refugees recently fled ‘crimes against humanity’ perpetrated by Myanmar Armed Forces on the other side of Naf River.

While the 26 years old Mohammed Ismail was in the queue to received the relief for his family of three, he found out that another person was collecting the relief under Ismail’s name.

Rohingya refugees gather in a local Bangladesh national house to collect relief

As he approached the person, he discovered that his ticket was already sold for 3,000 Bangladesh Taka by the staffs of Red Crescent. Being feeling hapless and have nothing to feed the family, Ismail went to talk the staffs about the illicit sold-out of his ticket, not only was he verbally abused and also was beaten by five staffs inhumanely for daring to complain for the activity of selling of tickets.

When the news of incident spread to the camp, his wife Jahan Ara, 22 and his father Sayed Ul Rahman ran to the area begging the staffs to handover Ismail, who was already kept inside the staffs vehicle. Jahan along with her father-in-law were also beaten and kicked after creaming for her husband. They too were forcefully pulled into the vehicle.

Upon interference of a local landlord, the staffs released the three refugees by throwing them out of vehicle as they drove away.

The incident leaves Ismail with severe physical injuries and lost his family ration, and currently provided treatment at Leda I.O.M clinic.

Mohammed Ismail remains in the clinic for further medical treatment

The Clearance Operations in the northern township of Maungdaw in Myanmar uprooted nearly 100,000 Rohingya since October 9, 2016. More than 75,000 of them have fled to Bangladesh where the majority of them remain in unregistered refugee camps and within properties of local Bangladesh nationals with extremely limited access to humanitarian aids and reports of mismanagement of relief by staffs of various NGOs.

It is estimated that over 1,700 new Rohingya refugee families reside inside and around Leda Camp.