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tv   Our World  BBC News  January 6, 2024 3:30am-4:01am GMT

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we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. the rohingya are often called the most persecuted minority in the world. six years ago, they had to flee their home country of myanmar after a deadly military campaign that the united states government has called a genocide. now, in the refugee camps of bangladesh, they're being murdered. 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?
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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. five rohingya gangs now operate in the camps and they're killing hundreds of their fellow refugees. at 1:30am, we get reports of another murder.
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entry to the camps is forbidden at night, but our team is just outside and have made contact with the victim's family. his name was muhammad yusuf. nabi hossain 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.
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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 at 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.
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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.
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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.
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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." one protection officer described him as a malicious character to me.
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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."
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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,
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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
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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 their appeals to unhcr went unanswered. it's a story we hear again and again.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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back in the camps, there's been another killing. we're following rohingya journalist and youtuber saiful arakani as he goes to investigate. saiful�*s journalism 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 unh — 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.
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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.
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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
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the one protecting taher and his family within the camps. now alone, taher fears he'll be next.
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hello there. the weather so far this year has been making the news headlines for all the wrong reasons with flooding, rain — it has been very unsettled. if we take a look at the satellite picture throughout this week, you can see areas of low pressure pushing their way from west to east, only to be replaced by another. and even once the significant lows have moved away, we've seen a rash of pretty frequent showers. but looking further ahead into next week, high pressure is going to build — we haven't seen this for quite some time — the isobars will open out, the winds will fall light. clear skies by day will lead to some frost and fog but it will lead to a quieter story,
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and we'll start to see the first signs of that this weekend. largely dry. there'll be some cloud around but it will feel noticeably colder. now, as we go into saturday, we will have some lingering cloud to the east of the pennines from a weakening weather front. still quite windy up into the far north and here, still some showers into the northern isles. but there will be a slice of finer weather with a few isolated coastal showers and temperatures around 5—9 degrees. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday, this high pressure continues to build in from the west and it's going to merge with this one across into scandinavia. the winds will fall pretty light. early morning mist and fog could be an issue, some of it slow to lift. and with that slight northeasterly across lincolnshire, down into east anglia and the southeast, could have a rogue shower through essex and kent. here, it'll feel a little cooler with any exposure to that breeze, and the temperatures a little bit below par for the time of year. clear skies by day will lead to clear skies overnight.
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frost and fog could be an issue notjust monday into tuesday morning but throughout the week, particularly where the winds fall light. so, monday morning, we will see a little more in the way of cloud around. we will be chasing cloud from time to time. that northeasterly breeze particularly bringing some cloud into east yorkshire, lincolnshire, east anglia and the southeast and those temperatures perhaps at around 3—5 degrees. there will be some brighter spells the further west with a little more shelter from that breeze. the high pressure is going to drift its way steadily westwards, the winds still circulating around that high in a clockwise direction. so, with any exposure along that east coast, it could be a little bit fresher. but with the fresher breeze on tuesday, that should help to shift the cloud and there should be a little more sunshine coming through on tuesday. still not a particularly warm day — 3—5 celsius. certainly going to be a shock to the system as we haven't seen temperatures like this for quite some time. now, the high pressure not moving very far very fast, just drifting its way
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slowly northwestwards, the wind direction coming round to more of a northeasterly. so, with that longer sea track, we'll see more cloud coming in off the north sea, so that means cloudier skies for eastern scotland, north east england in particular and perhaps, hopefully, a little more sunshine through central and southern areas. so, top temperatures — again, similar values through much of the week but we're looking around 4—7 celsius the high. now, as we move further ahead, it looks likely that the high pressure is going to start to lose its grip and allow low pressure to move in from the north and with that northerly wind starting to kick in, it may well turn colder still — darker blues, the temperatures falling away — and that could bring some showers as well, particularly into the north. and with those temperatures below par, well, some of those showers could be wintry in nature. but on the whole, a good deal of dry weather for the following week. enjoy.
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live from washington. this is bbc news.
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the un's humanitarian chief says gaza has now become uninhabitable as israel continues its bombardment of the strip. us presidentjoe biden marks the anniversary of the january 6 attack on the campaign trail with a speech about democracy. whether democracy is still america's for good causes the most urgent question about time and what the 2024 election all about. and famed sprinter 0scar pistorius is released on parole, 11 years after murdering girlfriend reeva steenkamp. hello, i'm carl nasman. we begin in gaza, where israel's war against hamas continues amid renewed humantarian concerns. the united nations humanitarian chief martin griffths said israel's bombardment of gaza has rendered the territory — quote — "uninhabitable". he says in a statement that:

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