Muslim refugees displaced by fighting between Rohingya groups in Bangladesh sent to Kutupalong camp

15 Feb 2023

DMG Newsroom
15 February 2023, Maungdaw

Bangladeshi authorities are sending Muslim refugees displaced by fighting last month around Taungpyo Letyar, in Bangladesh’s Bandarban District, to the Kutupalong refugee camp.

The houses of refugees were torched in fighting between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border on January 17-18, and refugees took shelter at a school in Taungpyo Letwe.

“The refugee camp is on the Bangladeshi side of the border. It was torched during the fighting. Refugees then stayed at a school in Taungpyo Letyar. I heard the camp housed thousands of people,” said a resident of Taungpyo Letwe Village.

Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission is leading the effort to send displaced Muslim refugees to the Kutupalong refugee camp.

A total of 2,420 Muslim refugees from 448 households displaced by the fighting were sent to Kutupalong refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Rakhine Daily, a junta media mouthpiece.

Another resident from Taungpyo Letwe said: “I heard they are being sent back to refugee camps in Bangladesh. They haven’t crossed the border into Arakan.”

More than 700,000 Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017, when the Myanmar military launched a brutal crackdown that it described as “clearance operations” following two separate attacks on security forces by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.