hundreds have been killed by drug gangs and militants and the violence is ongoing. unhcr is paid tens of millions of dollars to run a protection programme for refugees. but with rohingya dying every week, is that protection programme working? this is kutupalong in bangladesh, the largest refugee camp in the world. it's home to nearly a million rohingya, a predominantly muslim minority who've been persecuted in their home country of myanmarfor decades.

life in the camps is hard. rations have been cut to $8 a month, employment is prohibited and crime is rife. man shouts, whistling five rohingya gangs now operate in the camps and they're killing hundreds of their fellow refugees. at 1:30 am, we get reports of another murder. entry to the camps is forbidden at night, but our team isjust outside and have made contact with the victim's family. his name was muhammad yusuf. nobi hossein is a rohingya drug gang that uses the camps

to traffic methamphetamines from myanmar to bangladesh. as muhammad's family wait for the body to be released, they tell us the gruesome details of how he was killed. with the gangs stalking the camps, it's too dangerous for refugees to speak openly about the violence. but this man has agreed to meet a secret location. mohammed taher was a community leader in kutupalong's camp 16. two years ago, gangs started smuggling drugs through his area.

taher was blindfolded and taken to another location. on the final day, the gangsters attacked taher with a hammer, and then left him in a ditch. his leg never recovered, and two years on, he's still getting death threats. fearing for his life,

taher says he approached unhcr ten times, asking to be relocated somewhere safe. they are the un's refugee agency and they have a unit dedicated to protection issues. taher says they've not responded. taher is not the only one who's been ignored by unhcr. my name is mohib ullah. i'm a rohingya genocide survivor. mohib ullah is one of the most famous rohingya activists. he was a teacher back in myanmar but emerged as a community leader after arriving in bangladesh.

he set up a human rights organisation and also campaigned for the rohingyas�* safe return to myanmar. mohib�*s lawyer, eva buzo, says his pursuit of international justice posed a threat to the armed gangs operating in the camps. you know, there is a dominance of armed groups and these actors who want to achieve their political goals through violent means, and mohib was the antithesis of that. he was shot dead in september 2021. it was a major blow to the rohingya

community, with tens of thousands coming out for his funeral. mohib knew the gangs were planning to kill him, so he wrote to unhcr asking for protection, but no measures were put in place. i would describe unhcr's attitude as indifferent. they always did what they could to discredit him and say, "who does he think he is? he's just a teacher." 0ne protection officer described him as a malicious character to me. another one called him an effing idiot to me. you know, they really didn't like mohib. unhcr has an explicit remit to protect refugees and it asks donor governments to provide $32 million a year in order to fund its protection programme. i had a conversation with unhcr after mohib�*s murder where i said,

"you know, this is going to have a chilling "effect on human rights activists within the rohingya "community, that mohib had these protection risks "that went unmet." and the unhcr protection person said to me, point blank, "well, if speaking out on these issues causes protection risks, "then they should stop speaking out about these issues." the gang most often accused of committing violence in the camps is the arakan rohingya salvation army, better known as arsa. they emerged in 2016 and claim to be revolutionaries that are fighting for the rights of rohingya in myanmar. our team has made contact with a former member of the group who we're calling ahmed. he says the group used to be genuine freedom fighters, but things changed when the rohingya were forcibly displaced to bangladesh.

with arsa now acting more like a mafia, it started to lose support amongst the rohingya. after one camp leader refused to cooperate with arsa,

ahmed was given this order. in fact, ahmed was given multiple orders to kill his fellow rohingya. he refused them all and left the organisation. but the murders have continued. more than 300 rohingya refugees have been killed in the last five years. like mohib, many of them were community leaders and activists who opposed the gangs activities. the bangladeshi government allows unhcr to run one secure camp where a limited number of refugees can live under guard. unhcr has also resettled a handful of vulnerable rohingya to third countries, though few foreign governments participate in this programme.

yet we've verified at least four other cases where rohingya community leaders with credible death threats against them were murdered or attacked after they appeals to unhcr went unanswered. it's a story we hear again and again. we've also been told that they're failing to protect women who challenged the gangs conservative views on gender. we're going to call this woman rashida. she was working as a translator for international ngos when she started to receive death threats. most of the threats were delivered via audio message,

but members of her family were also physically harassed. this is a photo of her brother after a gang beating in october 2022. rashida says she met with unhcr three times, requesting protection, but was offered no support. a few months later, her brother was kidnapped and a ransom demanded. upon her release, rashida went straight to the doctor and kept the medical record as evidence of the assaults. she says she presented this document to unhcr and once again asked to be relocated somewhere safe.

it's illegal for rohingya refugees to privately rent accommodation outside the camps. but fearing for her life, rashida felt she had no choice. she continued to visit unhcr offices, requesting that her family be formally relocated to a safer location. six months later, she was attacked again. the kidnappers sent a video of rashida's limp body to her family with more threats.

rashida showed us her medical records from the day after this alleged attack. the doctor's notes are consistent with her description of what took place. we've found a unhcr worker who's keen to expose the failings within the organisation. as a member of the unhcr protection unit field team, he's often the first person a refugee contacts when they're getting threats from the gangs.

for years he's been referring these cases to his bangladeshi managers. unhcr says this violates their code of conduct and that they would investigate.

unhcr is not responsible for maintaining security in the camps. that falls upon the bangladeshi government. we've been invited along with their armed police battalion, as they search for gang members in the camps. they stop after an hour because it's raining, having made no arrests. back in the camps, there's been another killing. we're following rohingya journalist and youtuber saiful arakani as he goes to investigate.

saiful�*sjournalism has made him a target, so he's got to be quick. informants could tell the gangs that he's here. ten minutes later, he's on his way back to an apartment outside the camps that he's renting for his own safety. after receiving death threats, saiful contacted unhcr asking for protection. these are just a few of the emails he sent which went unanswered for a year.

eventually, unhcr did respond and moved saiful to a new shelter in an extension to camp 4. this is not their secure camp and is, in fact, an area of kutupalong where arsa is known to have a major presence. we've independently verified gang activity in camp 4 extension at that time, and saiful says he secretly recorded this video of security guards confirming the presence of gunmen in the camp. in an email seen by the bbc,

unhcr denied any gang activity and said saiful was spreading false information. according to eva buzo, unhcr has downplayed the threat posed by gangs at the request of the bangladeshi government, who also put restrictions on their work. this is something the bangladeshi government has previously denied. the issue with unhcr is that they say that they're the ones with the mandate to protect refugees, but they are just playing second fiddle to whatever the host country is saying. that's not what we need for the un, for the un refugee protection agency. we need an agency that says, "we stand for the protection "of refugees and if we cannot fulfil our mandate,

"then we will leave." we asked unhcr's deputy director in asia and the pacific, ellen hansen, whether her organisation is fulfilling its remit to protect refugees. it's sometimes challenging to meet what might be legitimate expectations of refugees. and, you know, frankly, funding has been reducing steadily for the last three years. so i think it's a wake—up call for us. it's also a wake—up call for the international community about this extremely vulnerable population, which is, you know, really struggling. gang violence is now worse than ever. earlier this year, an old militant group called the rohingya solidarity 0rganisation resurfaced. it attacked an arsa base and the two groups are now engaged in open warfare within the camps, with reprisal killings happening on a weekly basis.

the dire conditions mean thousands are now risking their lives with human traffickers in order to escape the camps in bangladesh. a few weeks ago, gang members shot taher�*s nephew, zahid. he survived, but he's decided to leave bangladesh.

taher cannot leave because of his injuries and he's still getting constant death threats. a few months ago, someone entered his shelter in the night and tried to shoot him with these bullets. until now, zahid has been the one protecting taher and his family within the camps. now alone, taher fears he'll be next.

hello there. friday is shaping up to be a fairly

decent day for many. there should be more sunshine around, the winds not quite as strong. there'll still be a few showers around. it will be a little bit cooler than of late, but things turn a lot more unsettled, though, for the last couple of days of 2023. you might want to take note if you have travel plans. for friday, then, we have low pressure anchored to the north—east of scotland. that's still going to bring strong gale force winds here to the northern isles, some snow showers at times. more sunshine for southern scotland. this weather front will bring a band of cloud to northern england, northern ireland, a little bit of snow to the higher ground and plenty of sunshine for the rest of england and wales. but there will be a few showers running into wales, south—west england, the midlands, southern england later on. just about double figures in the south. otherwise, it's a cooler day across the board. as we head through friday night, it stays blustery. further showers across northern scotland, but many places will turn drier with clearer skies and light winds — a recipe of quite a cold night to come, i think, to start saturday, with widespread frost and ice to watch out for across parts of scotland. however, into the weekend,

if you have travel plans, you'll want to take note to the forecast the next few days. we'll see further wet and windy weather, with snow on the hills in the north, so there could be some travel disruption. and it's all down to this next area of low pressure, a deep, low moving in on saturday to bring gales and heavy rain. many southern, eastern, northern areas will start dry and cold, but as the wind and the rain bumps into that cold air, we'll see snow falling over the high ground of northern england and across scotland, maybe even to lower levels for a while. i don't think the conditions will be too bad across the south—east at this point for saturday. double figure values again, but wet and windy further north and west. that band of heavy rain spreads across all of england and wales through saturday night. the centre of the low moves in towards the north of the uk, so the winds turn a little bit lighter here. so i think on sunday — of course, new year's eve — the strongest, gustiest of the winds will be across southern britain, where we'll see plenty of showers rattling in. some of them could be quite heavy, but there will be some sunshine through central and northern areas.

but it will be a chillier day, i think — temperatures in single digits for most. so an unsettled end to the year. as we head into new year's day, the 1st of january, it stays quite cool and unsettled, and a chilly first week of january to come with low pressure always nearby.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm mariko 0i. the headlines: tensions in taiwan ahead of a presidental election. beijing accuses the island of "hyping up" interference claims. as israeli forces advance towards central gaza, tens of thousands of palestinians are forced to flee refugee camps.

a clean—up operation is under way after a small tornado ripped through greater manchester, damaging around 100 homes. and from research to reality — why 2023 was a breakthrough year for gene editing technology. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. hi there, thank you for being with us. the government of taiwan has accused china of mounting a major misinformation campaign, to try to influence the outcome of the island's presidential election that's taking place next month. taiwan's ruling democratic progressive party — or dpp — is seeking an unprecdented third consecutive win. but the ruling party is loathed in beijing, which has long laid claim to taiwan. china's air force has also increased incursions across the taiwan strait in recent weeks. rupert wingfield—hayes has that story.