Attackers have killed at least seven people in an assault on an Islamic seminary in a Rohingya refugee camp on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
Talking to reporters, regional police chief Shihab Kaisar Khan said that the attackers shot dead some victims and stabbed others with knives.
Khan said, “We arrested one attacker immediately after the incident.”
Four people were killed instantly in the attack and three others died at a hospital in the Balukhali camp. Police did not confirm the if and how many people were wounded.
Khan said that the man was found with a gun, six rounds of ammunition and a knife.
Following the killing, Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that “arrangements will be made to increase security” at the Rohingya camps in the coastal Cox’s Bazar district.
Kamal said, “Manpower and logistical support of law enforcement agencies … will be provided to enhance security.”
The minister said that surveillance and border patrols would be stepped up to curb the entry and sale of drugs in Rohingya camps. Kamal said that surveillance on the Naf River, the only transboundary river between Bangladesh and Myanmar, will also be strengthened.
He said that the construction of barbed wire fences in the camps is in the final stages and there are several watchtowers across the camps to monitor movements.
“Climate of fear” in refugee camps
The killings came amid mounting tensions after Rohingya community leader Mohibullah was shot dead outside his office in the sprawling camps three weeks ago.
Rohingya activists say that there is a mounting “climate of fear” in the camps, with some of them forced to go into hiding since Mohibullah’s killing.
Last December, Bangladesh, which hosts nearly a million Rohingya, relocated more than 20,000 refugees to Bhasan Char Island. It plans to relocate an additional 80,000 people after signing an agreement with the United Nations to facilitate refugees on the remote island.
Bhasan Char is located 50 kilometres off Bangladesh’s southwestern coast and nearly 193 kilometres south of the capital, Dhaka, where the government has constructed 1,400 cluster houses, each made up of 16 rooms.
This story was originally published here.
