Asia | Shadowed by violence

A Rohingya leader’s murder highlights rising insecurity in refugee camps

Militias and gangs terrorise the residents and wage war against each other

DEATH THREATS did not appear to faze Mohib Ullah. “If I die, I’m fine. I will give my life,” he told reporters in 2019. A science teacher in Myanmar before he and hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya refugees were forced to flee in 2017, the 46-year-old became one of the displaced community’s most prominent voices on the international stage. He compiled databases of Rohingyas killed in Myanmar, organised huge rallies and spoke at the UN. Yet his fame and his resistance to violence also earned him enemies. On September 29th gunmen burst into his shack in the Kutupalong refugee camp in southern Bangladesh and shot him dead.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Shadowed by violence”

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