Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims in a refugee camp on the southeastern coast of Bangladesh took to mass rallies, Saturday, to demand a peaceful and dignified return to their homeland in Myanmar in 2023.
Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims participated in the protests in the refugee camp in the border area of Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh, and carried banners reading, “2023 should be the year of our return home,” “The Rohingya want to smile in 2023,” and “Enough, let’s go home.”
Addressing the crowd, Rohingya community leaders lamented that their children are growing up without education or care amidst the uncertainty of a peaceful and dignified return home and the poor living conditions in 33 overcrowded camps in Bangladesh.
“If the situation continues like this, we fear that in the near future we will be part of a lost generation,” said Maulvi Syedullah, a Rohingya community leader, while addressing the crowd.
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Other Rohingya leaders also called on the international community to apply appropriate pressure on the Myanmar government so that they regain their citizenship rights and return safely to their homes.
Since August 25, 2017, the Myanmar army and Buddhist militias have launched a military campaign and brutal massacres against the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State (Arakan), killing thousands of them and forcing nearly a million refugees to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations.
The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya “irregular immigrants” who came from Bangladesh, while the United Nations classifies them as “the most persecuted minority in the world.”
