Al Jazeera news, Yangon :
Abdul fled his burning home last August amid a frenzy of screams, smoke and gunfire.
As soldiers from Myanmar’s army shot people down at his village in northern Rakhine state, he saw his nephew and son-in-law struck and killed by bullets.
Abdul made it across the border with his wife and four children to Bangladesh where, like hundreds of thousands of other Muslim-majority Rohingya, they have lived for more than a year in cramped, desperate conditions.
Life there has been bleak, but they have at least been out of reach of the army accused by UN investigators of waging a genocidal campaign of mass murder, arson and systematic rape against the minority group.
But now Abdul – whose name has been changed to protect his identity – says he has been told he and his family will be sent back across the border to a region where Rohingya continue to face what one investigator recently called an “ongoing genocide”.
Rohingya crisis: UN warns of ongoing genocide
Earlier this month, an official came to their hut at the Jamtoli camp in Cox’s Bazar and told them they would be repatriated this week.
“We were in shock, I couldn’t say anything, my mouth just stopped working,” he told Al Jazeera.
Dozens of other families nearby have also been told they are on a list of more than 2,200 people to be sent back starting on Thursday after Bangladesh and Myanmar struck a deal at the end of last month to return some 5,000 people.
More than 730,000 fled to Bangladesh after Myanmar’s military, aided by Buddhist mobs, began attacking villages in August 2017 as part of what it claimed were counterterrorism operations.
Bangladesh officials say returns will be voluntary, but Rohingya are unconvinced.
Another Rohingya man who is on the list said a volunteer in the camp who works with government officials told him the decision was “final”.
The UN’s refugee agency has said it was not consulted on the plans and would not facilitate any returns this month. But it has agreed to interview Rohingya on the list to determine if they are willing to return.
“If we assess that they’re not going of their own free will that means the government will probably have to take another position,” said Firas al-Khateeb, a spokesperson for the agency.
Regardless of whether the plan goes ahead, talk of repatriations has sparked violence and chaos in a community already suffering extreme psychological trauma. At least 70 families at Jamtoli have reportedly gone into hiding, said Chris Lewa, director of Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project.
The threat of forced repatriation is also a likely factor in a recent uptick in people trying to flee Bangladesh by boat in hopes of reaching Malaysia, she told Al Jazeera.
Abdul fled his burning home last August amid a frenzy of screams, smoke and gunfire.
As soldiers from Myanmar’s army shot people down at his village in northern Rakhine state, he saw his nephew and son-in-law struck and killed by bullets.
Abdul made it across the border with his wife and four children to Bangladesh where, like hundreds of thousands of other Muslim-majority Rohingya, they have lived for more than a year in cramped, desperate conditions.
Life there has been bleak, but they have at least been out of reach of the army accused by UN investigators of waging a genocidal campaign of mass murder, arson and systematic rape against the minority group.
But now Abdul – whose name has been changed to protect his identity – says he has been told he and his family will be sent back across the border to a region where Rohingya continue to face what one investigator recently called an “ongoing genocide”.
Rohingya crisis: UN warns of ongoing genocide
Earlier this month, an official came to their hut at the Jamtoli camp in Cox’s Bazar and told them they would be repatriated this week.
“We were in shock, I couldn’t say anything, my mouth just stopped working,” he told Al Jazeera.
Dozens of other families nearby have also been told they are on a list of more than 2,200 people to be sent back starting on Thursday after Bangladesh and Myanmar struck a deal at the end of last month to return some 5,000 people.
More than 730,000 fled to Bangladesh after Myanmar’s military, aided by Buddhist mobs, began attacking villages in August 2017 as part of what it claimed were counterterrorism operations.
Bangladesh officials say returns will be voluntary, but Rohingya are unconvinced.
Another Rohingya man who is on the list said a volunteer in the camp who works with government officials told him the decision was “final”.
The UN’s refugee agency has said it was not consulted on the plans and would not facilitate any returns this month. But it has agreed to interview Rohingya on the list to determine if they are willing to return.
“If we assess that they’re not going of their own free will that means the government will probably have to take another position,” said Firas al-Khateeb, a spokesperson for the agency.
Regardless of whether the plan goes ahead, talk of repatriations has sparked violence and chaos in a community already suffering extreme psychological trauma. At least 70 families at Jamtoli have reportedly gone into hiding, said Chris Lewa, director of Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project.
The threat of forced repatriation is also a likely factor in a recent uptick in people trying to flee Bangladesh by boat in hopes of reaching Malaysia, she told Al Jazeera.
