Rohingya children, who make up more than half of Cox’s Bazar's 1m residents, suffer most
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe demolition of Noor’s school reflects a wider policy to discourage Rohingya refugees from settling permanently in Cox’s Bazar. Since 2017 Bangladesh has admitted some 700,000 members of the Muslim minority after they were driven from neighbouring Myanmar in a brutal campaign by the Burmese army. America and theconsidered the violence systematic enough to call it genocide.
Following a ban on home-schooling and private education in December, the government has closed some 30 schools in recent months. But the policy is not limited to education. Some 3,000 Rohingya-run shops have also been bulldozed. In May the authorities detained 650 refugees who had left their camp to celebrate Eid on a nearby beach. They subsequently prohibited movement in and out of two camps. Rohingyas now have to get written permission to leave, or risk being beaten at checkpoints.
The government, claiming the school was shut because it lacked a permit, says that its aim is to stamp out extremism and profiteering. It worries that the refugee-run schools, many of which are attached to makeshift mosques, may be incubators of Islamist ideology. Islamists have found fertile ground for recruitment in the camps, lending some legitimacy to such concerns. But shutting the schools is likely to exacerbate the problem, says Mohammad Showfie, Noor’s former headmaster.
More than extremism, the government seems to fear permanent settlement. Keen to dissolve the refugee camps on the mainland, it has spent $300m developing Bhasan Char, a tiny island 30km off the coast of Cox’s Bazar in the Bay of Bengal. Under an agreement with the, those who move there are promised an education. But people have not been eager to go: reports abound of forced relocations and escape attempts from the island.
Mr Showfie says that giving people the opportunity to study and earn a living by doing business in the camps would make life there more bearable. “Here, as in Myanmar, we want education, movement and safe living opportunities.” For now, that hope remains elusive.Asia
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