By AL-EMRUN GARJON and JULHAS ALAM, Associated Press
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — With hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in need of shelter after fleeing recent violence in Myanmar, a Bangladesh official said Monday the government will free land for a new camp.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has offered 2,000 acres near the existing camp of Kutupalong "to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers," according to a Facebook post Monday by Mohammed Shahriar Alam, a junior minister for foreign affairs.
The new camp will help relieve some pressure on existing settlements in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox's Bazar, where nearly 300,000 Rohingya have arrived since Aug. 25.
"The two refugees camps we are in are beyond overcrowded," said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency.
Alam also said the government will also begin fingerprinting and registering the new arrivals on Monday. Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees on Tuesday.
Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatized after walking days through jungles or packing into rickety wooden boats in search of safety in Bangladesh.
Many tell similar stories: of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or to die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs.
On Monday, Bangladesh's human rights watchdog demanded that atrocities by Myanmar authorities against Rohingya be prosecuted.
"This genocide needs to be tried at international court," National Human Rights Commission Chairman Kazi Reazul Haque told a news conference in Cox's Bazar.
"The killing, arson, torture and rape ... by the Myanmar's military and border guards is unprecedented," he said.
Across the globe in Geneva, the U.N. human rights chief likewise chronicled the violence Monday at the start of the latest Human Rights Council session.
Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, who is a Jordanian prince, said the situation "seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
The U.N. refugee agency has counted 270,000 people from Myanmar fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh in the last three weeks, Zeid said, pointing to satellite imagery and reports of "security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages" and committing extrajudicial killings.
Zeid spoke about the human rights concerns in Myanmar after first recognizing the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He also spoke about rights concerns in Burundi, Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and the United States, where he expressed concerns about the Trump administration's plan to dismantle protection for younger immigrants, many of whom have lived most of the lives in the U.S.
Haque with Bangladesh’s human-rights watchdog He said stronger action was needed from the international community, including the U.N., the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.