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?

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. 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. 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. 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." one 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 their 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�*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.

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 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.

gang violence is now worse than ever. earlier this year, an old militant group called the rohingya solidarity organisation resurfaced. it attacked an arsa base and the two groups are now engaged in open warfare within the camps all 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. saturday brought with it drier weather, some sunshine as well, but still around 200 flood warnings because all the rain that we have seen so far to start 2024 is still making its way through the river systems. there are numerous flood warnings in force, you can find more detail on the website. because of course the first three or four days of 2024, january, have brought almost a month's worth of rain in some areas. but that has all started to change and, as i say, it started on saturday with that drier weather for many under high pressure and that high pressure effectively is stopping the passage of these atlantic weather fronts,

keeping the rain at bay and keeping it dry across most parts for the next four or five days. but we are flipping the coin from the wet and the windy and the mild to the much colder with some frost and fog and on saturday we saw that fog lingering in cumbria and the fog will once again linger during the day on sunday, as well of course, icy because we start with frost and there is so much moisture around, even a few wintry showers across southern and eastern areas, coming into eastern parts of northern england as well. but for many there is a lot of dry and settled weather around but rather chilly weather once again on sunday. temperatures will be a notch down on those on saturday because it starts with a lower temperature. and then again, sunday night into monday, the frost and the fog return with some icy patches around and the fog slow to clear on monday. it does mean it could be quite hazardous on the roads first thing monday for the return to work for many, with freezing fog, icy patches as well.

some of that fog, as we have seen in recent days, slow to clear away but where it does so, it looks like a good deal of dry and bright weather for scotland, northern ireland, the west of england and wales. a bit more cloud milling around across northern and eastern areas but temperatures very similar, as you can see. they are a bit below average now, fours or fives, and it will feel colder as well when you add on that breeze coming in off a chilly north sea. and the breeze is because we have more tightly packed isobars across the southern half of the uk which on tuesday should help to bring in some drier air and break that cloud up a bit. so hopefully we will see a bit more sunshine across central and eastern areas. instead, we might have that fog or low cloud lingering further north but again, it is a frosty start, a fine and dry day for most part just the issue of where the fog and low cloud will be. it looks as though because we have that breeze from the south on wednesday as well, clearer skies here, but perhaps more of that breeze coming in off the north sea willjust bring more cloudy skies into central and eastern parts of both scotland and england, and temperatures might therefore not quite be

as low but still cold and feeling cold of course because of the wind. a similar story really on thursday, we keep the high pressure centred to the north of the uk so it keeps things fine and dry and settled. temperatures just lifting a little, as you can see, later this week. but really that high pressure is the reason for the dry weather. there was just the chance, though, into the weekend, that we might see some rain or snow coming in from the west and indeed from the north so a lot of uncertainty towards next weekend but it looks like a transient spell, then followed by wintry showers. yes, temperatures mayjust lift a little later in the week, and then we get some potential rain or even some snow in and then it is another blast of, if anything, colder air coming in by the end of the weekend. so some uncertainty as we approach the latter part of the week and the weekend but until then, it is looking drier and colderfor most.

live from washington, this is bbc news. after a mid—air emergency on an alaska airlines flight, us officials demand the grounding of 171 boeing 737 max 9 planes around the world.

israel's military says it has now "completed the dismantling" of hamas�*s military framework in northern gaza. and three years since supporters of donald trump stormed the us capitol, we'll reflect on what happened onjanuary 6th — a date that still divides america. hello, i'm helena humphrey. good to have you with us. us aviation officials have ordered the temporary grounding of more than 170 boeing 737 max 9 passenger planes after a panel blew out in mid—air during a flight. the alaska airlines plane had 177 people on board friday when it was forced to make an emergency landing. no—one was injured. the uk and european air safety authorities have also implemented inspection orders. in the last hours, boeing has issued this statement: