Bangladesh detains over 650 Rohingya refugees celebrating Eid on popular beach

Rohingya refugees are barred from leaving detention camps in Bangladesh

A group of Rohingya refugees, detained while on a visit to a beach, sit in front of a police station in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh on 4 May 2022 (EPA)

Over 650 Rohingya Muslims celebrating Eid were detained by Bangladesh police in the Cox’s Bazar town.

About 450 of them, including women and children, were detained during a two-hour drive conducted on the town’s beach, said to be one of the longest in the world, on Wednesday.

Another 203 Rohingyas were held on Thursday, two days after Bangladesh celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr, reported Bangladesh daily New Age.

“We are here for fun... But as soon as we arrived, police caught us. We did not do anything wrong, we just sat on the beach,” Mohammad Ibrahim told news agency AFP.

The detainees are residents of the Ukhiya and Teknaf refugee camps and wanted to spend a couple of days to celebrate Eid at Cox’s Bazar, which is hosting up to 200,000 tourists every day during the Eid vacation, reported the Dhaka Tribune.

About 900,000 Rohingya refugees in the country are barred from leaving detention camps where they have been stuck since fleeing neighboring Myanmar in 2017, to escape the country’s military offensive against them.

The detainees, held from the Kalatali, Laboni, Sugandha and Inani beach areas, will be sent back to the camps through the country’s Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner after identity verification.

“They were supposed to stay in the camp. But they left the camp and came to the town,” additional police superintendent Rafiqul Islam told New Age, adding no charges have been brought against those detained on Wednesday and that they were being sent back to the transit camp.

Police said it had to conduct the drive for the security of the Rohingya, as a teenager had died while bathing at the beach on Wednesday.

The 16-year-old, identified as Saiful Islam, was a resident of Kitipalong Camp in Ukhiya Upazila, reported New Age.

He was swimming with five others, when he and another boy, Raihan, started to drown. While beach volunteers managed to save Raihan, Saiful was declared dead.