Five Rohingya refugees were killed in a gunfight between two rival groups at a Rohingya camp in Ukhiya upazila of Cox’s Bazar on Friday morning after an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor visited the settlements to gather testimony.
The incident took place at Camp-8 West around 6am between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), two rival insurgent groups operating in the camps.
Additional Deputy Inspector General of police Amir Zafar, commander of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn)-8 confirmed the matter.
Four of the deceased were identified as Anwar Hossain, 24, and Md Hamim, 16, residents of Camp-8, Nurul Amin, 24, of Camp-13, and Md Najimullah of Camp-10.
The police recovered three bodies upon arrival after receiving news of the gunfight, Amir said, adding that critically injured two others were taken to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.
Drives are on to arrest those involved in the incident, the APBn commander added.
All five who were killed in the gunfight are members of ARSA including a commander. Security had been stepped up in the camps as a result, reports AFP.
The violence came hours after the murder of Ebadullah, a refugee community leader, apparently at the hands of ARSA members.
A national daily said Ebadullah, 27, had been marshaling refugees to meet with ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who visited the camps on Thursday to record statements from witnesses to the 2017 crackdown in Myanmar.
ARSA did not immediately comment on the killings, but its members have been accused of targeting Rohingya civic leaders who challenge its authority.
Its leader, Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi, was last year charged in absentia with the 2021 murder of popular peace activist Mohib Ullah, a regular critic of the insurgent group's activities in the camps.
Jununi and other key ARSA leaders are also accused of murdering a senior Bangladeshi intelligence officer last November.
The murder prompted security forces in January to evict a makeshift settlement on the Myanmar border that ARSA had allegedly used as a staging post for methamphetamine trafficking to fund its operations.
Dozens have been killed in Rohingya camp clashes so far this year, including women and children.
ICC prosecutor Khan told reporters in Dhaka that neither Ebadullah's murder nor the other killings were linked to the court's work.
"This has nothing to do with the ICC or anything else," he said.
Since the court's genocide probe began in 2019, "there has not been one incident that has come to our attention... of any individual being targeted because of the ICC or any perceived or actual involvement in the ICC", he added.
Speeding things up
Khan said he was working to expedite the court's probe into abuses against the Rohingya but his task had been hampered by restrictions on travel to Myanmar.
"That has quite a bit of difference on the ability to document, collect evidence and verify what took place," he said. "I am not promising anything next year. All I am promising is we are speeding things up."
Funding cuts forced the United Nations food agency to cut rations to refugee settlements twice this year, with aid workers warning that the move would likely worsen the already precarious security situation in the camps.
Bangladesh and Myanmar have renewed efforts to begin repatriating Rohingya refugees to their homeland, where the stateless minority have been subject to decades of persecution and are denied citizenship.
