TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – A fire started by an inmate tore through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, burning and suffocating screaming men in their locked cells as rescuers desperately searched for keys. As many as 300 people were killed in the BOSTON – Tens of thousands of Burmese refugees are being forced into makeshift camps in Bangladesh and face widespread starvation unless they receive more humanitarian aid, according to an international human rights organization’s report released today.
The Physicians for Human Rights, based in Massachusetts, faulted Bangladesh authorities for “arbitrary arrests, illegal expulsion and forced internment” of Burmese refugees as neighboring Myanmar prepares for elections later this year.
Since the 1990s, thousands of the refugees have made their way to Bangladesh from Myanmar, which was roiled in unrest resulting from its military junta.
The report, “Stateless and Starving: Persecuted Rohingya Flee Burma and Starve in Bangladesh,” also called the makeshift camps for unregistered refugees “open-air prisons” where children face severe malnutrition due to a lack of food aid and restricted movement outside of camps.
“The government of Bangladesh is absolutely ignoring it. They are sweeping it under the rug,” said Richard Sollom, director of research and investigation for the group based in Cambridge, Mass. “Basically, it’s the policy of the government that they simply want (the refugees) to disappear.”
In addition, Sollom said Bangladesh authorities are preventing outside aid to get to the refugees.
Abdul Momen, Bangladesh’s representative in the United Nations, called that charge “totally false” and said government officials just have to make sure that any aid isn’t coming from terrorist groups.
“Bangladesh always stands by human rights,” Momen said. “(But) we are the victims. The Burmese people have been kicked out of their country and we gave them shelter. We are an impoverished country, and in spite of that, we tried to help them as best we can.”
Momen said the influx of refugees in Bangladesh is putting pressure on the country, roughly the size of Massachusetts, since it is already overcrowded with a population of 160 million.
Momen said there may be one or two “sporadic incidents,” but he denied there was widespread abuse.
