Less than a month after the murder of an internationally known Rohingya activist, dozens of masked assailants killed at least six refugees at a madrassa in southeastern Bangladesh, in the deadliest armed attack at the camps in recent memory, police and witnesses said Friday.
Police said four victims died at the scene – in and around a madrassa at the Balukhali refugee camp in the Ukhia sub-district of Cox’s Bazar – and two died at a nearby hospital. A dozen others suffered injuries in the attack, which took place around 4 a.m.
Some of those who died in the attack had volunteered to help police patrol the camp at night after the killing of activist Muhib Ullah on Sept. 29, a local police official said.
“We assume that they were killed for aiding the police in maintaining law and order at the camps. But we have to investigate whether any other factors led to the killings,” Khandker Ashfaquzzaman, an additional superintendent of the Armed Police Battalion, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
In a statement issued Friday, Ashfaquzzaman’s unit said “Rohingya miscreants” carried out the early-morning attack, and that four forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals died at the scene.
Police rushed to the area and transported injured Rohingya to a hospital, according to the statement, adding that on-duty doctors had declared two of the injured dead.
Witness Md Rafiq, 32, told BenarNews that some 100 masked men armed with sticks, machetes and firearms descended on a section of the Balukhali refugee settlement.
“The armed men started attacking the nearby houses. Some people from the madrassa came out due to the hue and cry of the people. Then the attackers launched an attack on those people with machetes and firearms,” Rafiq, who lives beside the madrassa, told BenarNews.
“Many of the people fled from the madrassa and hid in the mosque to save their lives. As news of the attack on the madrassa spread, more people rushed to the spot, and the attackers fled,” he said.
Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.