Rohingya story must stay in the center

Tom Cheshire, Correspondent in Asia

As we were leaving Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh last week, our fixer fixed to food vendors on the side of the road: "These are the rich Rohingya .

They were still barracks but they were bigger and more comfortable than the shelters occupied by those who arrived since August, fleeing violence in Myanmar.

The reason the Rohingyas are the "rich", however, is not something to envy. They have been in the camps since the early 1990s. Many children have lived all their lives indoors.

A similar fate seems inevitable for the more than 700,000 people who have arrived more recently. Although the UN and Myanmar have agreed to an agreement in May for the Rohingya to return home, the conditions are far from safe enough.

And even then, refugees may not be able to relive the trauma of a return. A Rohingya woman who said she was raped by soldiers told us, "I would never go back there, I would rather be killed here than go back to Myanmar."

So now, hundreds of thousands of people are in a dirty muddy, dangerous limbo. As welcoming as the government of Bangladesh (can you imagine the British government – or the public – hosting nearly a million refugees?), It still keeps people in purgatory.

The Rohingya are recognized as refugees but are not allowed to leave freedom of movement, the right to work or the right to an appropriate education.

They have to stay in the camps – and it becomes less safe. First, because of the monsoon rains, landslides, floods and diseases they may have caused.

Secondly, confinement is a source of discontent. This is useful for human traffickers, who find it easier to draw people into their networks with promises of a better life. This is also useful for the radical elements inside the camps.

We were ordered to leave the camps at 5 pm every day, that's when the Bangladeshi soldiers left. This allows the gangs to meet, including the Salvation Army Arakan Rocherya (Asra), the group of insurgents who killed several Burmese soldiers and police in 2016 and 2017.

The Myanmar's brutally brutal reaction came after. Last month, a community leader who criticized Asra was killed after dark in the camps. The people inside the camps we talked to said that they felt less safe than they had a few months ago.

At the same time, there is the feeling that the l & # 39; international attention drift. Myanmar continues to deny that it has carried out ethnic cleansing – the tactics used by regimes around the world to block attention and hope that people are losing interest.

Western governments have also been wary of intervening too strongly. They want to preserve the fragile democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, especially given the continued dominance of the army in Myanmar.

But there is an easy way to keep history at the center of attention. The International Criminal Court is reported to have organized an in camera investigation to investigate crimes against the Rohingya. It should be bold and public to pursue it – and to hold authors to account.

This does not mean that the Rohingyas will come back to Mynamar sooner. But it would give at least some justice to those living in the camps

Sky Views is a series of comments from the Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously in Sky Views: Paul Kelso, We Need to Review the NHS