Bangladesh restricts refugees from Myanmar

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — Bangladeshi authorities are taking steps to restrict the movement of Muslim Rohingya refugees living in crowded border camps after fleeing violence in Myanmar, whose military chief maintains that the chaos was the work of extremists seeking a stronghold in the country.

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed with more than 400,000 Rohingya who fled their homes in the last three weeks amid a crisis the U.N. describes as ethnic cleansing. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last week lambasted Myanmar for “atrocities.”

Refugee camps were already beyond capacity and new arrivals were staying in schools or huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields. On Sunday, police were checking vehicles to prevent Rohingya from spreading to nearby towns in an attempt to control the situation.

“There is an instruction from the prime minister that we must treat Rohingya Muslims maintaining human rights,” said A.K.M. Iqbal Hossain, a police superintendent. “As many private and social organizations are coming and distributing relief, sometimes chaos breaks out.”

He said with the scale of the crisis “it’s very difficult to keep order, but we are doing so.”

The refugees began pouring from Myanmar’s Rakhine state after a Rohingya insurgent group launched attacks on security posts Aug. 25, prompting Myanmar’s military to launch “clearance operations” to root out the rebels. Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs.

The Myanmar government describes most of the hundreds who have died as “terrorists,” while saying 176 out of 471 Rohingya villages have been abandoned. Myanmar has insisted that Rohingya insurgents and fleeing villagers are destroying their own homes. It has offered no proof to back these charges.