Ransoms allegedly demanded holding Rohingyas hostage

Rohingya refugees who are attempting to reach Malaysia by boat from Bangladesh are being held hostage by human traffickers who have demanded large ransoms from their relatives with threats of violence, according to a Reuters report.

About a dozen Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh alleged that they had received phone calls from traffickers demanding money to stop relatives from being abandoned at sea and, in some cases, raped or killed.

More than a million mostly Muslim Rohingya reside in camps in Bangladesh, with the majority having fled a 2017 army-led crackdown in largely Buddhist Myanmar.

With the refugees fearful of returning to Myanmar and frustrated with life in the camps, smugglers and traffickers have capitalized by charging for places on boats to Malaysia - a favored destination for Rohingya seeking better lives.

Long viewed as a smuggling issue, where people willingly pay to cross borders illegally, activists said examples of extortion of the Rohingya were instead a sign of human trafficking which involves individuals being exploited through force or deception.

“I don’t know if she is alive or dead,” said Abdul Hakim, a Rohingya refugee, who last saw his 17-year-old sister in March before she left their camp to take a boat destined for Malaysia.

“A broker called me from the ship a month after she left and asked me to pay 100,000 taka if I wanted her to stay alive and enter Malaysia. We already paid 45,000 taka for the journey through loans. Where will I get so much money?”

None of the 12 families interviewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation said they had been able to meet the ransom demands.

Hundreds of Rohingya are estimated by aid agencies to be stranded at sea, with Malaysia refusing to accept them after tightening its borders due to coronavirus and Bangladesh saying last week it was not in a “position to take any more Rohingya”.

Last week, Malaysian authorities detained 269 Rohingya when they tried to enter the country on a damaged boat. In April, a trawler that was at sea for weeks after it failed to reach Malaysia returned to Bangladesh with 396 starving Rohingya.

Survivors of recent failed boat crossings have recalled overcrowding, beatings, and people dying of hunger and thirst, and charities fear violence and deaths will increase as traffickers take advantage of the impasse to demand ransoms.


Dhaka/AI