KUTUPALONG: Some 200,000 Rohingya rallied in a Bangladesh camp on Sunday to mark two years since they fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar forces, just days after a second failed attempt to repatriate the refugees.

During the brutal August 2017 offensive, around 740,000 people belonging to the Muslim community escaped Myanmar’s Rakhine state — joining those who had fled earlier persecution.

A total of nearly one million refugees now live in three dozen squalid camps in Bangladesh’s south-eastern border district of Cox’s Bazar.

On Sunday, children, hijab-wearing women, and men in long-skirt lungis shouted “God is Great, Long Live Rohingya” as they marched at the heart of the world’s largest refugee camp to commemorate what they described as “Genocide Day”.

Under the scorching sun, thousands joined in a popular song with the lyrics “the world does not listen to the woes of Rohingya”.

Myanmar has said it was conducting counter-insurgency operations in August 2017 against Rohingya ext­re­mists who attacked police posts. But the UN last year called for Myanmar’s top generals to be prosecuted for genocide over the crisis.

Rohingya leader Mohib Ullah said the stateless minority wanted to return home, but only after they were granted citizenship, their security was ensured and they were allowed to settle in their villages.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2019