Bangladesh has banned three Islamic charities from working with the Rohingya refugees, a lawmaker said on Thursday, amid concerns that displaced Muslims in camps along its border could be radicalised.
Mahjabeen Khaled, an MP from the ruling Awami League, said the international charities, Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief, and Bangladesh-based Allama Fazlullah Foundation, had been blacklisted from the Rohingya refugee camps in southern- most Cox’s Bazar district.
Khaled, who sits on the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs, said no specific allegations had been levelled at the charities.
But authorities were “scrutinising and screening” all aid agencies wanting to contribute to the massive relief effort in Cox’s Bazar, where more than half a million refugees had fled to squalid camps since August.
“We want to monitor who is giving aid, and why, for security reasons. Who are funding them, and what they are going to do with the money?” Khaled told AFP.
“They (Rohingya) are vulnerable. A lot can be done with this Rohingya people. We want to be careful,” she said, adding it would be “easy” to lure the refugees to militancy.
Bangladesh has heavily curtailed access to the Rohingya camps in recent years, but eased restrictions last month after more than 520,000 new refugees poured across the border.
The government’s NGO Affairs Bureau approved 30 local and global aid groups to meet “emergency needs” in the overwhelmed camps, which already housed about 300,000 Rohingya before the latest influx.
Before that, just four international charities — including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Action Against Hunger (ACF) — were permitted to operate in the sensitive border district.
