Some 500 families of the marginalized Christian community spreading over several refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar demand that the authorities ensure adequate security measures as hostility and intimidation have increased significantly in recent months.
They fear that radical Islamists and criminal gangs may launch fatal attacks on their places of worship during Christmas celebrations. These groups have created an atmosphere of religious intolerance by influencing the common Rohingya Muslims living near Christians, they allege.
Members of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn) were deployed at the churches in Rohingya camps on Sunday night.
“Due to fear of repercussion, many Christians refrain from revealing their identities. We can’t build permanent churches at the camps and have not been allotted any land for graveyards either,” said Peter Saiful, the 26-year-old pastor of a church who was born in Bangladesh.
His family came to Bangladesh during an exodus in 1990-91 and has stayed in several camps before shifting to the Transit Centre in 2020 following a barbaric attack launched by some Muslims targeting Christians.
Currently, the Christians living in several refugee camps account for between 2,000 and 2,500, against a population of over 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims.
Despite being a small minority group, nowhere in the camps where they reside, mainly camps 13, 27, and the Transit Centre, have the Christians gotten any land for burial or for setting up a church. Rather, some Christians have been forced to convert to Islam, while others are pressurized to convert voluntarily.
The first batch of Christian Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh during an exodus in 1990-91; later, some of the families were forced to return to their homeland in the Rakhine State of Myanmar in 2003, while others got registered, meaning they were allowed to stay in specialized camps in Cox’s Bazar and entitled to rations.
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After 4-5 years, some of the families came back and took refuge in the cramped camps, while the last largest caravan of Christian Rohingyas joined them in 2017. After six years, they have remained marginalized and are constantly subjected to hostility and violence of a communal nature for their faith. According to several community leaders who spoke to Dhaka Tribune, they also lack adequate support for exercising the rituals.
Fear of the dark
The Christian community leaders allege that members of the radical Islamist groups and criminal gangs intimidate them whenever they expose their faith—as they perform weekly prayers, celebrate Christmas and Holy Week, or when they need to bury a Christian.
These violent gangs pressurize the Christians to convert to Islam voluntarily while influencing the common Muslims to hate the Christians and ostracize them. They consider it an Islamic movement, a pastor told Dhaka Tribune, preferring to remain anonymous. He alleged that some Bengali officials and residents in the adjoining areas also advocate conversion to Islam.
Constant harassment and the dreadful memories of January 26, 2020, when two Christians were abducted, over a dozen were injured, and their churches and schools vandalized, forced them to maintain a low profile or hide their identity while moving around the camps, the pastor said.
To avoid repercussions, the devotees usually join the prayers quietly while burials take place secretly in Muslim graveyards, under police protection, as Muslim corpses.
The absence of specific protection programs from UN agencies or camp authorities adds to their vulnerability. Documentation of physical violence, discrimination, destruction of places of worship, and wrongful arrests further highlights the urgent need for attention to the safety and security of this minority group, the pastor said.
The Christian Rohingyas face a unique set of challenges, particularly in practicing their faith openly. “They navigate a precarious existence where their faith intersects with broader social and political dynamics in the refugee camps. Intolerance and difficulties within the camps force some to conceal their beliefs, with a few even attending mosques to avoid suspicion,” said Shafiur Rahman, a UK-based journalist and researcher.
He added that, since 2014, the Christian Rohingya families have faced a multitude of challenges, including arbitrary arrests and extortion by the police, as well as violence and death threats primarily from criminal groups and certain factions within the Rohingya community itself.
In December last year, the arrest of David Nazir, a Rohingya Christian who loved to help Muslims, due to wrong identification and the delay of nine months for his release from jail created fear and mistrust in the community.
In January 2020, Yanghee Lee, the former UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, visited a small church in Kutupalong.
She highlighted the precarious situation of the Rohingya Christians, stating: "I also met with a group of Rohingya Christians who are in a most difficult position. They told me they were persecuted due to their religion by the Myanmar government while they lived in Rakhine, and now they face hostility and violence from a small number of other camp residents. This worries me.”
The situation has not improved much, said Peter, who now lives in the Transit Centre following the attack on the same church within three days after Lee’s visit.
“Taher, a Christian Rohingya pastor, and his 14-year-old daughter were abducted from their shelter following a violent attack on Christian families in Kutupalong Camp 2. This assault involved scores of men who injured residents, vandalized homes, and looted property. Twelve individuals were hospitalized, and a makeshift Christian church and school were destroyed,” he added.
