Dhaka: People belonging to non-Muslim ethnic communities have been fleeing violence and migrating from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh to Myanmar’s Chin and Rakhine states, a report has stated.
The population in the CHT includes around 850,000 people who belong to 11 ethnic communities, professing Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. The members of four families from the CHT who have relocated to different areas of Myanmar’s Rakhine State and Chin State revealed to ‘The Diplomat’ magazine that the immigration started years ago due to various factors and during the different governments in Bangladesh.
Htwe Sein Maung, a farmer with five acres of land in Bandarban district in Bangladesh’s CHT, lived in Lamar village, which is mostly inhabited by the Marma Buddhist community. In 2014, he decided to migrate to Myanmar with his wife and daughter and 15 other families from the same village.
Htwe Sein Maung and the other families decided to relocate to Myanmar after Muslim groups hailing from other parts of Bangladesh, who had settled near his village, threatened them and encroached upon their land.
“The encroachment apart, our paddy fields were burned and many households were barred from cultivating their land. Then, restrictions were imposed on our movement. We couldn’t go to the market for fear of atrocities,” Htwe Sein Maung said, adding that the police were reluctant to lodge cases and start a probe despite repeated reminders and applications at the police station.
Subsequently, all 16 households decided to migrate to Myanmar. The Myanmar military permitted these families to reside on small plots of land in Maungdaw district, however, these areas were far off from the Rohingya Muslim villages. Currently, all the families earn their livelihood by the cultivation of vegetables and paddy while some members work as daily wagers.
Tan Nu Sein and her family of five, also belonging to the Marma community, migrated from Rangamati district in Bangladesh’s CHT to Maungdaw in 2013. From 2011-2013, at least six girls from the Marma community, who resided in Motipara village in the CHT, disappeared in a six months period while returning home from school, the Diplomat report mentioned.
Tan Nu Sein’s 16-year-old niece was among those who disappeared during these six months. Later, it was reported that she was forcefully married to a Muslim man. Eventually, residents of the villages received threats from neighbouring Muslim villages who were allegedly backed by local politicians of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Some residents were physically assaulted in different incidents.
“Our movements were severely restricted. We did not want our children to be abducted or killed,” The Diplomat quoted Tan Nu Sein as saying. She recalled how residents from her village migrated to Myanmar’s Rakhine state in different batches.
In 2021, several areas of CHT were further disturbed after the emergence of the Kuki Chin National Front (KCNF), which started armed resistance against the Bangladesh government. The outfit’s cadres included Kuki-Chin ethnic groups, including the Bawm community in the hill districts, who are Christians by faith. Hundreds of people from these ethnic groups were arrested in the crackdown launched by the Bangladesh army. In 2025, 10 households which comprised over 50 people from the Marma community were forced to flee from their village of Bara Toli in Rangamati district to Myanmar.
“Bangladesh’s CHT has been reeling under violence and unrest for almost five decades. Successive governments, whether led by the Awami League, BNP or the military, never displayed any commitment to safeguard the interests of the ethnic groups. In the existing circumstances, greater displacement and forced emigration to neighbouring countries could only increase,” Diplomat reported.
(IANS)
