Second Rohingya ‘leader’ killed in BD refugee camp

BALUKHALI, Bangladesh: Attackers on Monday killed a Rohingya representative in a Bangladesh refugee camp, the second such death in three days as tensions mount over the planned repatriation of some 750,000 refugees to Myanmar.

Sources said the dead man Yusuf Ali was a camp leader at the Balukhali camp on the border with Myanmar. Mohammed Yusuf, a leader in the neighbouring Thaingkhali camp, was shot dead last Friday.

Yusuf Ali, 60, was stabbed to death, district police chief Iqbal Hossain told AFP. Another police official described him as a Rohingya "majhi" or camp leader. The Dhaka Tribune described the earlier victim, Mohammad Yusuf, as a pro-repatriation leader. His wife Jamila Khatun, 35, said some 20 armed and masked men stormed their home and and shot her husband in the head.

"He shouted ‘Oh Allah!’ and they shot him again in the mouth. He fell down," she told AFP. "They spoke Rohingya. They were saying to my husband: ‘Why did you put our name on the list?’ They were furious," she added.

She did not say which list the attackers were referring to. Bangladesh authorities have been trying to draw up a list of Rohingya, among nearly one million in camps on the border, who could be sent back to Myanmar. Bangladesh has been besieged with an influx of more than 680,000 Rohingya since Myanmar’s military launched the latest crackdown on the Muslim minority last August.