Amader Brahmanbaria.com
DHAKA — Myanmar authorities have lured dozens of mainly Buddhist Bangladeshi tribal families to cross the border and resettle on land abandoned by fleeing Muslim Rohingya, officials said on Monday.
About 50 families from remote hill and forest areas on the Bangladesh side, attracted by offers of free land and food, have moved to Rakhine state in mainly Buddhist Myanmar — the scene of a brutal army crackdown which prompted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee.
The families from the ethnic Marma and Mro tribes have left their homes in the Bandarban hill district, local councilor Muing Swi Thwee said.
He said 22 families departed from their villages in the Sangu forest reserve last month.
The families, mainly Buddhist but with some Christians, were being “lured by Myanmar” to Rakhine where they were given free land, citizenship and free food for five years, Muing Swi Thwee said.
“They are going there to fill up the land vacated by the Rohingya who have left Burma (Myanmar). They are extremely poor.”
Two government officials in the region confirmed the migration, saying up to 55 tribal families had left for Myanmar.
“They are being lured by some people in Myanmar in return for free homes, free food for five-seven years. Some families have shifted there after being attracted by these offers,” Jahangir Alam, a government district administrator, said.
He said some of the tribal groups have family in Rakhine and these relatives are being used to woo the Bangladeshi tribals.
“These people have religious and linguistic similarities with Myanmar. Some of their ancestors have settled there in the past,” he said.
Al Kaiser, another government official, said a tribal man was killed and several family members were injured in a mine blast when they were crossing into Myanmar from the town of Ali Kadam.
Officials said they suspect political motives behind the migration.
“We think perhaps they (Myanmar) want to make some news using these people, that Buddhists are being tortured and repressed in Bangladesh and that’s why they have left the country,” said one official on condition of anonymity.
A Bangladeshi security officer told AFP that Myanmar had resettled thousands of Buddhists in Rakhine by using a resettlement scheme which offers free food, homes, cows and cash.
In another development, Bangladesh officials said on Monday a fishing boat carrying Rohingya Muslims to Southeast Asia did not set sail from its shores, where close to one million refugees live in congested camps.
Police in Bangladesh’s southeast said they were investigating after a boat moored at a Thai island with dozens of Rohingya aboard, but were adamant their coast guard would have spotted the vessel.
“The boat didn’t leave from Bangladesh,” said Afrujul Haq Tutul, deputy police chief in Cox’s Bazar district where the Rohingya camps are located.
“But, in light of the news, we are investigating this matter.”
The boat, en route to Malaysia where there is a sizeable Rohingya community, stopped at an island off the west coast of Thailand early Sunday due to bad weather.
Thai officials said there were about 56 women, men and children on board and that the Rohingya would continue towards their destination.
Rohingya migrants attempting the boat routes south have been a rare sighting since Thai authorities clamped down on regional trafficking networks in 2015, leaving thousands of migrants abandoned in open waters or jungle camps. — Agencies
