In refugee camps housing more than a million displaced Rohingya Muslims, Reuters has learned that militant groups are arming and training fighters to return to their native Myanmar and join a bloody conflict between the military junta and an insurgent group. - REUTERS
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00:00Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh is home to more than a million Rohingya refugees who fled
00:05persecution in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.
00:09But now it appears that thousands of Rohingya refugees have been recruited by militant groups,
00:13and some are heading back across the border into Myanmar.
00:17Among them was a man who calls himself Rafiq.
00:22His face is obscured to protect his identity.
00:25A lot of us gathered on the other side of the river.
00:28We went to fight.
00:32We fought for God, not to show off to anyone.
00:36We were leading a peaceful life here, living on refugee rations.
00:41Still, we went over because we believe we have rights in our own country.
00:47We have a right to live in Rakhine.
00:50The Rohingya are a mainly Muslim group that is the world's largest stateless population.
00:56They began fleeing Myanmar in 2016 to escape what the United Nations calls a genocide at
01:00the hands of Buddhist-majority Myanmar's military.
01:04Following a military coup in 2021, a long-running rebellion involving a complex array of armed
01:10groups has gained ground.
01:12Now it appears Rohingya fighters have entered the fray.
01:15What is unusual is that many have joined groups that are not fighting against Myanmar's military.
01:20Instead, they are loosely allied with their former military persecutors.
01:24That's because the Rohingya groups are fighting against the Arakan Army ethnic militia, which
01:29is backed by the majority Buddhist ethnic Rakhine community.
01:33Reuters reported this year that the Arakan Army was responsible for burning down one
01:37of the largest remaining Rohingya settlements in Myanmar.
01:41Reuters also reported that one of the largest Rohingya militant groups, the Rohingya Solidarity
01:46Organization, had reached a, quote, battlefield understanding to fight alongside the Myanmar
01:51military.
01:52It's what could be described as a case of, my enemy's enemy is my friend.
01:58Abu Afna is one former fighter.
02:00He says he traveled by boat from near the camps in Bangladesh to the western Myanmar
02:04town of Mongdaw, where the Arakan Army was fighting Myanmar's military for control.
02:10There, he says, he was housed and armed by junta troops.
02:16His voice has been distorted to protect his identity.
02:19When I was fighting alongside the junta army, I felt these were the same people who raped
02:25and killed our mothers and sisters.
02:28And the people I was fighting against were the reason our nation was ruined completely.
02:33Our main enemy was not the Myanmar government, but the Rakhine community.
02:39Afna says one of the incentives for joining up was that the junta was offering citizenship.
02:46But he says his commander kept promising citizenship cards, but they never came.
02:52Bangladesh's government did not respond to questions, while the junta denied in a statement
02:57that it had conscripted any Muslims.
02:59It said Muslim residents had requested protection and that it had provided basic military training
03:04to help them defend their villages and regions.
03:07Reuters interviewed 18 people who described the rise of insurgent groups inside Bangladesh's
03:12refugee camps and reviewed two internal briefings on the security situation written by aid agencies
03:18in recent months.
03:20The news agency is reporting for the first time the scale of recruitment by Rohingya
03:24armed groups in the camps, which totals between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters.
03:30One security source said the emergence of trained Rohingya fighters and weapons in and
03:34around the camps is something Bangladesh regards as a ticking time bomb.
03:38Some 30,000 children are born each year into deep poverty in the camps, where violence
03:43is rife.
03:44That's raised concerns that disillusioned refugees could be drawn by non-state actors
03:51into militant activities and criminal enterprises.