In South Asia, authorities in Burma and Bangladesh say they’ve agreed to a plan that would see some 650,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees repatriated to Burma over the next two years. Since last August, vigilantes backed by Burmese soldiers have staged attacks on Rohingya, unleashing rape and murder while burning hundreds of villages to the ground, in what the U.N. high commissioner for human rights has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” At a sprawling refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Wednesday, many residents said they will only return to Burma if they receive justice for crimes committed against their community.
Noor Hossain: “They must give us compensation for those Muslims they killed, for looting and destroying our fields and cattle. They must return our houses. And if they show justice to us, then we can go back. We, Muslims, all are ready to go back to that country, but they must give us our Rohingya rights.”