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Kutupalong (Bangladesh) (AFP)

Some 200,000 Rohingya rallied in a Bangladesh refugee camp to mark two years since they fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar forces, just days after a second failed attempt to repatriate the refugees.

Around 740,000 Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine state escaped in August 2017 during the brutal offensive, joining another 200,000 who fled earlier persecution in vast camps in southeast Bangladesh.

Children, hijab-wearing women, and men in long-skirt lungis shouted "God is Great, Long Live Rohingya" as they marched at the heart of the world's largest refugee camp to commemorate what they described as "Genocide Day".

Under the scorching sun, thousands joined in a popular song with the lyrics "the world does not listen to the woes of Rohingya".

"I have come here to seek justice for the murder of my two sons. I will continue to seek justice till my last breath," 50-year-old Tayaba Khatun said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Myanmar had said they were conducting counter-insurgency operations against Rohingya extremists after they attacked police posts, but the UN last year called for Myanmar's top generals to be prosecuted for genocide over the crisis.

Rohingya leader Mohib Ullah said the stateless minority wanted to return home, but only after they were granted citizenship, their security was ensured and they were allowed to settle back in their villages.

"We have asked the Burmese government for dialogue. But we haven't got any response from them yet," Ullah told the rally.

"We were beaten, killed and raped in Rakhine. But still that is our home. And we want to go back."

Police officer Zakir Hassan told AFP some 200,000 Rohingya took part in the peaceful gathering.

Security has been tight across Kutupalang camp, the world's largest refugee settlement and home to more than 600,000 Rohingya.

"Hundreds of police, army and border guards have been deployed to prevent any violence," local police chief Abul Monsur told AFP.

The rally came three days after the failed attempt to repatriate the refugees, which saw not a single Rohingya turn up to return across the border.

On Saturday, Bangladesh police said they shot dead two refugees during a gunfight in a camp after the pair were accused of killing a ruling party official.

The Rohingya are not recognised as an official minority by the Myanmar government, which considers them Bengali interlopers despite many families having lived in the country for generations.

© 2019 AFP </s> The Bangladesh government says it has offered a plot of land for a new camp to shelter Rohingya Muslims who have fled recent violence in Myanmar.

The violence has driven nearly 300,000 Rohingya to flee Buddhist-majority Myanmar, with many of them packed into existing camps or huddled in makeshift settlements that have mushroomed along roadsides and in open fields across Cox’s Bazar district on the border.

Bangladesh’s junior Foreign Minister Mohammed Shahriar Alam said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had 2 acres (.8 hectares) near the existing camp of Kutupalong “to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers,” according to a message posted Monday on his Facebook account.

He also said the government would be registering the new arrivals on Monday. Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees on Tuesday. </s> LOOK out from the high-ground in the middle of Kutupalong and two sights fill the eyes: Myanmar’s green hills silhouetted in the east and dehydrated, denuded mounds pocked by the blue-black tarpaulin sheets of makeshift shelters everywhere else.

That jarring contrast in Bangladesh’s landscape is new. It’s an indirect consequence of brutal military operations in Myanmar that forced 650,000 Rohingya refugees into the country, the majority since August 2017. Most of their journeys have involved witnessing horrendous atrocities, flight from burning villages, and then stumbling through forests or battling monsoon-charged waters in search of safety.

Along the way, they pitched camp wherever they found space and turned to the local forest for everything from shelter to fuel. Satellite images show a clear difference in forest cover between October 2016 and November 2017 that looks similar to the aftermath of clear cutting. They continue to rely on the forest in Bangladesh.

As the refugees poured in through various points along the border, the Bangladeshi military tried to round them up around the existing Kutupalong and Balukhali settlements – in such numbers that they merged into the world’s largest refugee camp.

The weight and rate of that influx have created an additional environmental crisis in Bangladesh’s sensitive border district, stripping away 4,000 acres (1,618.74ha) of forest land, according to numbers from an internal Bangladesh forestry department report shared with Mongabay. Crucial groundwater supplies have also been depleted and contaminated, according to the World Health Organisation.

SEE ALSO: Diphtheria hits Rohingya camps amid rising evidence of genocide

It is a crisis borne of chaos that has not only tipped a delicate balance on Bangladesh’s water-scarce and cyclone prone southeastern tip but also accentuates the humanitarian challenges for both refugees and an overwhelmed local population.

There are now almost one million refugees, including those from previous influxes, living in an area hit by cyclones in each of the previous three years and where, in the worst parts, refugees say they have to live on two pots of water a day.

“It was like a jungle, all of this. There were trees and fruit plantations,” said Rehana Begum, a local Bangladeshi whose home now lies in the middle of the mega-camp. “Now there are so many homes here but they only appeared over the last two or three months.”

Those homes are simply tarpaulin sheets fastened to bamboo poles and pinned into patches of earth the refugees hacked from the hills. From inside the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp, the lines of those tents and hills they cling to are impossible to see past – a sea of dust and plastic that repeats into the horizon, scarcely a tree in sight. Satellite imagery provides a startling overview of those 1.5 square miles (4sq km): from August 2017 onward, Kutupalong’s brown mass creeps steadily outward, eating farther into the government Teknaf Game Reserve that surrounds it until it joins with the smaller Balukhali camp to the south.

“From the late seventies, whenever the Rohingya people came to Bangladesh, they settled down in Teknaf and Ukhia areas and basically in forest land, as there is no [other] available space in those areas,” said Ali Kabir, the Bangladeshi forestry department’s officer for Cox’s Bazar South, the district the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp falls under.

While the Muslim minority from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state have previously fled to Bangladesh in the tens of thousands after operations by the Burmese military in 1978, 1991 and with increasing frequency over the past 10 years, the most recent influx, and corresponding changes, have been far more intense.

“They are cutting down the hills, they’re chopping all the trees, herbs, shrubs then erecting their shelters. As a result, the topography of that area has been greatly damaged,” Kabir said.

The view by satellite also shows a not-quite-browned but visibly thinning ring of green around the camps, especially to the west.

It is from the west that every day, all day, a constant stream of Rohingya men, as well as some women and children, are found wading through puddles, bowed under the loads of firewood each has to go hunting for several times a week. Eight hundred tons of fuel wood are now needed daily, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The sheer weight of that demand created by the refugees in just the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp’s surroundings – and more spread through other camps – has forced the forests to rapidly recede. That doesn’t include the thousands of babies who will be born in coming months.

The camp’s overwhelming brownness does gradually give way to more greenery on foot-beaten paths that lead away from it, but mile upon mile of vestigial tree stumps and scythed-down shrubbery offer no more than a hint of how far the forest has retreated. What had been a 6-mile (9.6km) round trip when the newest Rohingya refugees first arrived has doubled into 12 miles (19.3km) with entire days spent walking and cutting trees.

The route winds on and on, offering no shade from the Bangladeshi dry season’s unfiltered sun. Everywhere there is either someone carrying loads or sat down by the side on one of the numerous breaks they have to take. Barefoot, both men and women wrap themselves in simple pieces of cloth, known as lungis, paired with a vest or blouse and no protection from the elements. Few carry water and some even drink from muddied puddles created a few days earlier by unexpected rains.

“I don’t know how to count the miles I’m walking but I start very early in the morning and get to the forest by about 10 o’clock,” said Ayub Ali, who fled Maungdaw township in Myanmar in September. He spends an hour hacking away at the trees with his machete, the universal tool of Rohingya and Bangladeshi villagers, before ambling his way home, resting regularly by leaning against a stack of branches taller than himself.

SEE ALSO: Blockchain technology employed to give Rohingya refugees identity cards

Now in his 60s, Ali has never before had to actually collect wood but now makes the arduous journey two or three times a week. Few of the refugees recall ever having to do such work in Myanmar, where they would simply buy wood or gas from local suppliers.

With the search for firewood becoming more strenuous and many worried about what they will do when the impending cyclone season adds extra challenges and strains, some Rohingya appear to be stockpiling the treasured commodity. While most houses have branches drying out on their roofs, some have stacks taking up whole corners of their homes.

Around 1,000 football fields worth of timber would be needed to supply the refugees for a single year, according to Graham Eastmond, who coordinates the shelter sector for the international humanitarian response.

Many out collecting firewood are children, some with adults but others sent along with siblings and friends by parents who also have to make sure they are in the camps to collect their aid supplies – which usually offer no alternative fuel for cooking on.

Not everyone is able to walk the whole way, especially some of the youngest children. Instead, they can be found along the route, or even in the camp itself, hacking at the ground to free left behind tree stumps or pulling at wiry roots – a task almost as tedious as the longer journey because of how little fuel they can scavenge.

A lot of that fuel also poses health risks for the refugees as it produces more smoke that becomes trapped in their confined living spaces.

“When they’re cooking green fuel, they’re going to get sicker a lot faster; eye infections, respiratory infections,” said an environmental consultant involved in the emergency response, who could not be named as he was not cleared to speak to media. “It’s just really unhealthy to be cooking green wood and its worse for the forest too because if you’re cooking green wood, it means you’re cooking on the last of it.”

The majority of deforested land has been government-owned, according to forestry official Kabir. Almost half of that land was part of the 15-year-old government Social Forestry Program – now decimated.

The program relied on public land and quick-growing trees that could, within a decade, provide local communities a sustainable income through selling the highly-valued timber used for furniture.

“About 2,000 acres of social forestry has been completely destroyed…almost 1,000 poor people are involved in this programme,” Kabir said, noting that local Bangladeshis have handed in a petition requesting the government compensate them for the lost land.

In contrast to previous influxes of Rohingya refugees, many local Bangladeshis have tolerated the Rohingya – if not willingly, at least after prompts by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – but also grumble about how long they will stay.

Rehana Begum, the area resident who saw dozens of refugee families move in around her, said she accepted them as fellow Muslims but complains about how much the area has changed and even accuses the refugees of stealing from her. But a nearby group of Rohingya say it is not their fault, and there was nowhere else for them to settle.

While there have been genuine concerns for local Bangladeshis about the damage done to the environment and increasing pressure on resources, many do appear to have taken advantage of the situation. Some refugees have reported Bangladeshis demanding small fees from them while collecting wood or for settling on nearby land, and there are signs of a growing trade in firewood.

SEE ALSO: Burma, Bangladesh to agree plan for repatriation of Rohingya refugees

Though Kabir denied any wood was being brought in from outside the camp area, as they have existing stringent checks for smuggled timber along the route, the signs are there.

Muhammad Araf, 27, is a new arrival in the Balukhali refugee camp and one of the Rohingya who have gone into business buying bundles of wood for about 25 cents each and then selling them for about a 12 cent profit per bundle.

Every morning small electric buggies carrying bundles of firewood wrapped in red string head for the camps and surrounding villages.

He said it was local Bangladeshis who were bringing the wood in from somewhere north of Kutupalong, though he did not know exactly where. Without the government monitoring it, it is hard to know exactly how much the trade in wood is also affecting the forestry even beyond the camps’ immediate surroundings.

The Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf districts that run along Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar have long had problems with water. Usable groundwater supplies in some parts are much deeper than usual, which makes getting to them hard and limits how much can be used in an area that already had around 300,000 Rohingya refugees living in it, mostly from influxes since 1991.

That problem, according to a 2012 study by the University of Dhaka, is caused by a high amount of rainwater running off into the nearby River Naf and Bay of Bengal – a problem expected to be exacerbated by mass deforestation reducing the amount of vegetation to pull water into the underground aquifers. The IUCN also highlighted the region as one of 10 in Bangladesh that are severely vulnerable to saline water from the sea contaminating sweet-water sources locals may otherwise have been able to draw from.

“The more water that goes, the less that gets recharged into the aquifers because that water runs right out to the sea. It doesn’t trickle down like it’s supposed to,” said the environmental consultant who asked to have his name withheld.

In the Hakimpara refugee camp, a quarter of shallow tube wells have already dried up, according to aid group Doctors Without Borders.

Adding to the pressure on water supplies is the fallout of a chaotic response to the rapid influx. Latrines were installed hastily to meet one of the fastest movements of refugees in a generation and many were poorly built or not put in the right areas.

Leaking latrines, open defecation and tube wells placed too close to latrines have polluted the groundwater, leading to more than 60 percent used by the refugees being contaminated, the WHO warned.

Kabir, the Bangladeshi forestry official, says the easiest solution is to begin repatriating the refugees. While the government has signed an agreement with Myanmar and even submitted a list of the first 100,000 refugees, such a process would be long even if not opposed by both international organizations and the refugees themselves, who fear being exposed to exactly the same dangers if returned without their rights being guaranteed.

More realistically, plans are being made to harness existing nurseries and nurture more in order to start reforestation around the camps. Part of that will include eco-terracing – quickly plugging some greenery back into the stripped-down hills to provide some protection against landslides when monsoon rains, and potentially cyclones, hit in the coming months.

SEE ALSO: UN flags plight of ‘forgotten’ Rohingya children in central Rakhine

By using existing nurseries as well as offering cash-for-work, aid agencies are hoping to involve the local population and ease tensions between the two communities.

They are also hoping to limit how many Rohingya are turning to the forests for firewood by improving the stoves they use and offering alternatives fuels like gas or briquettes based on harvested rice husks or coconuts – though some of these options are limited by season.

Shelter coordinator for the international humanitarian response Eastmond said the scale of the environmental impact and the discussions they are now having has highlighted how little priority has been placed on providing disaster victims with fuel supplies.

“It should be a sector in itself, it never gets looked at quick enough – that’s the argument,” he said.

In the meantime, Rohingya refugees like Sunjuddin, who arrived after an attack on his village in Maungdaw during the Muslim Eid festival in September, said he can see the trees disappearing but they have no other option.

“This is difficult, it’s draining to do this every day,” he said. “But we need to eat and there’s nothing else to cook on.”

This article is by Kaamil Ahmed, a foreign correspondent who has reported on conflicts, labor and the environment in South Asia and the Middle East. You can find him on Twitter at @kaamilahmed. Originally published on Mongabay. </s> Kutupalong Refugee Camp: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh made emotional pleas to the UN Security Council on Sunday for help to return safely to their homes in neighboring Myanmar and for justice over the reason they fled – accusations of killings, rapes and arson.

During a visit to an unclaimed strip of territory between the two states dubbed no-man’s land, several tearful women and girls threw themselves at British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce as they recounted what had happened to them.

"It shows the scale of the challenge as we try as a Security Council to find some way through that enables these poor people to go home," Pierce said. "The sad thing is there’s nothing we can do right today that will make their distress any less.”

The Security Council envoys – who will travel to Myanmar on Monday and meet with its de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi – also visited a dry and dusty Kutupalong refugee camp that housed many of the nearly 700,000 Rohingya who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

"It’s quite overwhelming. Obviously the scale of this camp is unlike anything I’ve ever seen," said deputy US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelley Currie. "It is going to be a disaster when the rains come."

United Nations officials and aid groups have voiced concern that the coming monsoon season will worsen the humanitarian situation. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are living in temporary shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulins at Kutupalong, many on steep hills and in low-lying areas likely to be flooded.

Myanmar’s Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye, who visited the camps in Bangladesh earlier this month, expressed concern about "very poor conditions."

The refugee crisis exploded about eight months ago when the Myanmar military launched a crackdown over Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts. The United States, Britain, United Nations and others described the operation as ethnic cleansing of the minority mainly Muslim Rohingya, a charge Myanmar denies.

Hundreds of refugees lined a road in Kutupalong camp on Sunday with signs that read "we demand justice" and "protected return to protected homeland."

"We are standing here to demand justice as they (Myanmar military) have killed our men and tortured our women so much, so we are compelled to seek justice for those abuses," Rohingya refugee Sajida Begum told Reuters.

Several female refugees who met with council envoys accused Myanmar troops of gang-raping them, attacking their young children and killing their husbands. Myanmar has said that its operations in Rakhine were a legitimate response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents.

“This is very complicated issue, and it’s related with history, with ethnicity, with religions,” Chinese deputy UN Ambassador Wu Haitao told reporters, in response to a question about whether China and Russia were preventing the council from considering a resolution on Myanmar.

“There is no easy answer but if we all work together I think we can find a way,” he said.

However, while the Security Council is united on travelling to the region, diplomats said they expect Myanmar ally China and Russia – both veto-wielding powers on the council – to resist any push for stronger council action, such as sanctions or a referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court.

“We don’t have any magic solution in the Security Council,” deputy Russian UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters in response to a question about whether the council would consider itself responsible for failing to address the crisis.

“The issue is still for us to promote bilateral ways to resolve this issue. We will try to convince both governments... to engage in constructive negotiations, discussion,” he said.

The council adopted a formal statement in November – a move that requires consensus by the 15-member body – that asked Myanmar to ensure no “further excessive use of military force” and to allow “freedom of movement, equal access to basic services, and equal access to full citizenship for all.”

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has for years denied Rohingya citizenship, freedom of movement and access to many basic services such as healthcare and education. They are considered illegal immigrants from mainly Muslim Bangladesh. </s> Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh (CNN) One woman and two children were killed in a stampede for unofficial handouts of clothing near a Rohingya refugee camp, aid agencies say.

The three people -- whose names and ages have not been released -- died Friday as supplies were being thrown from relief trucks on the road in the Balukhali Pan Bazar near the Kutupalong refugee camp, the Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) in Bangladesh said.

The deaths are a stark reminder of the desperation in the camps near the border with Myanmar, where an estimated 409,000 refugees have arrived since August 25, more than doubling the existing Rohingya refugee population.

"I could not bring anything. My clothes were given to me by someone here," said Rohingya refugee Romiza Begum. "I lost everything. There is nothing left in my home in Myanmar. Everything is destroyed."

The exodus began after Rohingya militants killed 12 security officials at border posts in Myanmar's Rakhine State, resulting in an intensified government "clearance operation." Amnesty International has accused Myanmar's military of deliberately torching Muslim-minority Rohingya villages near the Bangladesh border in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing." The government says it is targeting terrorists.

Unofficial aid distributions are often carried out by sympathetic locals in Bangladesh, who pile bags full of donations on the back of trucks and then throw them out as they drive through the camps.

CNN witnessed several of these aid drops in and around the Kutupalong refugee camp. When the trucks are spotted on the road they spark a frenzied dash as crowds of desperate Rohingya refugees race towards them, through mud and traffic, in the hope of catching some supplies.

"We just want to help," one man throwing out aid told CNN.

Relief agencies appreciate the efforts of those trying to help, but say this is a hazardous way to do it.

Corinne Ambler, spokeswoman for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) Bangladesh, said it is better for refugees to use official aid distribution points because the truck method is too dangerous.

Refugees who manage to catch tossed supplies sometimes end up in a fight to keep them. Those who fail often climb onto the truck to try to grab anything they can, but men on the back of the truck have sticks and beat them down. Children are most in danger as the truck drivers often don't see them, Ambler said.

Many of the Rohingya refugees are sick, hungry and dehydrated by the time they arrive. Many have malnutrition or diarrhea, and some arrive with gunshot wounds, burns or land-mine injuries they sustained escaping Myanmar.

"We came to Bangladesh because life back home was very dangerous. Bullets were flying around like rain," one 60-year-old Rohingya refugee told CNN. "I fell down when I was running away and hurt my knee. I can't walk or sit properly now."

The aid agencies working in the area -- including the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), the World Food Program and other UN agencies -- are forced to prioritize their limited supplies by focusing on the most vulnerable people, such as pregnant women and babies, the sick and the elderly. Ambler says the people they are serving are only "a drop in the ocean" compared to the thousands who need aid.

"I can only describe it as wall-to-wall human suffering. I've never seen anything like it," Ambler, the IFRC spokeswoman, told CNN. "We can't cope with the numbers that are here now. I don't know how we're going to cope if more come."

Three thousand families, or about 15,000 people, lined up on Friday for an official aid distribution organized by Red Crescent volunteers from Bangladesh and the UAE.

Alongside long queues of mostly women and elderly people waiting in the blazing sun, groups of men stood around looking hungry and desperate. Families headed by men and those with fewer children are a low priority, forcing many men to beg in the street.

"We have no food and no clothes. We are homeless," said refugee Mohammed Harun. "Everything, destroyed by the military. Now we are without food or blankets."

Aid agencies struggle to keep up

CNN cannot verify the stories of the Rohingya refugees, as access to Rakhine State is heavily restricted for journalists.

Even for the families who receive some aid, it's only just enough to keep them alive. Most aid packs include milk, juice, some semolina and some high-energy biscuits. Most of the refugees don't have any cooking equipment or electricity, so there's little point providing food that requires cooking.

Some refugees are too weak to carry food home and have to rely on volunteers to help them.

Aid agencies are ramping up their responses as fast as they can, but with thousands more refugees arriving every day, it's a race against time just to keep people in these camps alive.

"It's a challenge for everyone to scale up quickly," Ambler said. "Finally, people are starting to realize what the situation is." </s> Bangladesh has agreed to free a plot of land for a new camp to shelter hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled recent violence in Myanmar, an official said Monday.

The new camp will help relieve some pressure on existing settlements in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox's Bazar, where nearly 300,000 Rohingya have arrived since Aug. 25.

"The two refugees camps we are in are beyond overcrowded," said U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Vivian Tan.

Other new arrivals were being sheltered in schools, or were huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields. Basic resources were scarce, including food, clean water and medical aid.

Still, refugees were still arriving. An Associated Press reporter witnessed hundreds streaming into the border at Shah Puri Dwip on Monday.

"Tomorrow we are expecting an airlift of relief supplies for 20,000 people," Tan said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had offered 2 acres (.8 hectares) near the existing camp of Kutupalong "to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers," according to a Facebook post Monday by Mohammed Shahriar Alam, a junior minister for foreign affairs.

He also said the government would begin registering the new arrivals on Monday. Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees on Tuesday.

Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatized after walking days through jungles or packing into rickety wooden boats in search of safety on the Bangladeshi side of the border.

Many tell similar stories — of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or to die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs.

The government hospital in Cox's Bazar has been overwhelmed by Rohingya patients, with 80 arriving in the last two weeks suffering gunshot wounds as well as bad infections. At least three have been wounded in land mine blasts, and dozens have drowned when boats capsized during sea crossings.

The violence and exodus began on Aug. 25 when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country.

In response, the military unleashed what it called "clearance operations" to root out the insurgents. Accounts from refugees show the Myanmar military is also targeting civilians with shootings and wholesale burning of Rohingya villages in an apparent attempt to purge Rakhine state of Muslims.

Bloody anti-Muslim rioting that erupted in 2012 in Rakhine state forced more than 100,000 Rohingya into displacement camps in Bangladesh, where many still live today.

Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination and persecution in Myanmar and are denied citizenship despite centuries-olds roots in the Rakhine region. Myanmar denies Rohingya exist as an ethnic group and says those living in Rakhine are illegal migrants from Bangladesh </s> KUTUPALONG, BANGLADESH (AFP) - Some 200,000 Rohingya rallied in a Bangladesh refugee camp on Sunday (Aug 25) to mark two years since they fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar forces, just days after a second failed attempt to repatriate the refugees.

Around 740,000 Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine state escaped in August 2017 during the brutal offensive, joining another 200,000 who fled earlier persecution.

The nearly one million refugees now live in three dozen squalid camps in Bangladesh's south-eastern border district of Cox's Bazar.

On Sunday, children, hijab-wearing women, and men in long-skirt lungis shouted "God is Great, Long Live Rohingya" as they marched at the heart of the world's largest refugee camp, to commemorate what they described as "Genocide Day".

Under the scorching sun, thousands joined in a popular song with the lyrics "the world does not listen to the woes of Rohingya".

"I have come here to seek justice for the murder of my two sons. I will continue to seek justice till my last breath," 50-year-old Tayaba Khatun said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Myanmar had said they were conducting counter-insurgency operations against Rohingya extremists after they attacked police posts, but the United Nations last year called for Myanmar's top generals to be prosecuted for genocide over the crisis.

Rohingya leader Mohib Ullah said the stateless minority wanted to return home, but only after they were granted citizenship, their security was ensured and they were allowed to settle back in their villages.

"We have asked the Burmese government for dialogue. But we haven't got any response from them yet," Mr Ullah told the rally.

"We were beaten, killed and raped in Rakhine. But still that is our home. And we want to go back."

Young Rohingya students from schools set up by aid agencies held marches with black flags and chanted slogans, "yes Rohingya, ... no Bengali", in reference to the term Myanmar has used for the ethnic group.

The refugees offered special prayers, seeking divine blessings for people who had died. They held large banners urging Myanmar to "talk to us about citizenship and Rohingya ethnicity".

Police officer Zakir Hassan told AFP some 200,000 Rohingya took part in the peaceful gathering, which was attended by UN officials.

Security has been tight across Kutupalong camp, the world's largest refugee settlement and home to more than 600,000 Rohingya.

"Hundreds of police, army and border guards have been deployed to prevent any violence," local police chief Abul Monsur told AFP.

The rally came three days after the failed attempt to repatriate the refugees, which saw not a single Rohingya turn up to return across the border.

Bangladesh and UN officials interviewed nearly 300 families, none of whom agreed to go back Myanmar where they fear they would be kept in special camps for internally displaced people.

Amnesty International said the ongoing violence in Rakhine "makes immediate repatriation dangerous and unsustainable", and called on Bangladesh to provide schooling for children in the camps, adding that it would have long-term benefits for Dhaka and the refugees.

On Saturday, Bangladesh police said they shot dead two refugees during a gunfight in a camp after the pair were accused of killing a ruling party official.

The Rohingya are not recognised as an official minority by the Myanmar government, which considers them Bengali interlopers despite many families having lived in the country for generations. </s> Thousands of Rohingya refugees have marked the second anniversary of their exodus into Bangladesh by rallying and praying as they demand Myanmar grant them citizenship and other rights before they agree to return.

Almost 200,000 Rohingya participated in a peaceful gathering, which was attended by UN officials, at the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar on Sunday, police officer Zakir Hassan told AFP news agency.

Children, hijab-wearing women, and men wearing long lungis shouted: “God is great, long live Rohingya” as they marched in the heart of the world’s largest refugee camp to commemorate what they described as “Genocide Day”.

Some carried placards and banners, reading “Never again! Rohingya genocide remembrance day” and “Restore our citizenship”.

On August 25, 2017, nearly 740,000 Muslim-majority Rohingya fled Rakhine State for Bangladesh – joining 200,000 already there – after Myanmar’s armed forces launched a brutal crackdown following attacks on security posts.

Sunday’s rally came days after a second failed attempt to repatriate the refugees, which saw not a single Rohingya turn up to return across the border.

“We want to tell the world that we want our rights back, we want citizenship, we want our homes and land back,” Mohib Ullah, one of the organisers of Sunday’s protest, told the Associated Press news agency. “Myanmar is our country. We are Rohingya.”

“I have come here to seek justice for the murder of my two sons. I will continue to seek justice till my last breath,” 50-year-old Tayaba Khatun told AFP as tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Long-term problem’

 On Saturday, Bangladesh police said they shot dead two refugees during a gunfight in a camp after the pair were accused of killing a ruling party official.

Nearly a million Rohingya live in squalid camps in southeast Bangladesh.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Kutupalong refugee camp, said: “The scale of this camp is like nothing you have ever seen. It has roughly the same population as Islamabad or Oslo.”

“A city of refugees, but without the infrastructure needed to cope,” she added.

The Rohingya, a mainly Muslim minority, are not recognised as an ethnic group in Myanmar, despite having lived there for generations. They have been denied citizenship and are rendered stateless.

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation deal in November 2017, with a plan to return the refugees within two years.

Bangladesh, with the help of the UN refugee agency, attempted to start the repatriation of 3,450 Rohingya on Thursday for a second time after the last attempt in November, but none agreed to go back voluntarily.

“They asked if we wanted to go back to Myanmar, I said no. They asked me why. I told them that our homes were burned, our family members were raped and killed. This is why we suffered to come here. How can we go back without knowing that we will be safe?” Noor Hossain told Al Jazeera.

Rohingya leader Mohib Ullah said the stateless minority wanted to return home, but only after they were granted citizenship, their security was ensured and they were allowed to settle back in their villages.

“We have asked the Burmese government for dialogue. But we haven’t got any response from them yet,” Ullah told the rally.

Al Jazeera’s Dekker said many were too “terrified and traumatised” to go back.

“There are reports that most of the homes of these people have been razed to the ground by the authorities, that other structures have been put up in their place, so where will they be going back to?” she said.

“These are the issues that haven’t been addressed and I think many people tell you realistically that this is going to be a long-term problem for Bangladesh and potentially the region.”

‘Genocidal intent’

 A UN-established investigation last year recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the crackdown on the Rohingya.

On Thursday, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released a new report concluding that rapes of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s security forces were systemic and demonstrated an intent to commit genocide.

The report said the discrimination Myanmar practised against the Rohingya in peacetime aggravated the sexual violence towards them during times of conflict.

The UN has called the Rohingya crisis a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

“The Rohingya genocide is the last step in the continuity of persecution and a deliberate campaign of terror, violence, killings and rape waged against our people that began decades ago,” the UK-based Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) said in a statement on Sunday.

“Today, we remember and honour all those who were killed as heroes and martyrs. We will remember them forever.” </s> Bangladesh has agreed to free land for a new camp to shelter some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled recent violence in Myanmar, an official said Monday. The new camp will help relieve some pressure on existing settlements in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar, where nearly 300,000 Rohingya have arrived since August 25.

“The two refugees camps we are in are beyond overcrowded,” said UN refugee agency spokeswoman Vivian Tan. Other new arrivals were being sheltered in schools, or were huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields. Basic resources were scarce, including food, clean water and medical aid. Still, more refugees were arriving. An Associated Press reporter witnessed hundreds streaming through the border at Shah Puri Dwip on Monday.

“Tomorrow we are expecting an airlift of relief supplies for 20,000 people,” Tan said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had offered 2 acres near the existing camp of Kutupalong “to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers,” according to a Facebook post Monday by Mohammed Shahriar Alam, a junior minister for foreign affairs.

He also said the government would begin fingerprinting and registering the new arrivals on Monday. Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees on Tuesday. Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatized after walking days through jungles or packing into rickety wooden boats in search of safety in Bangladesh.

Many tell similar stories of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or to die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs. The government hospital in Cox’s Bazar has been overwhelmed by Rohingya patients, with 80 arriving in the last two weeks suffering gunshot wounds as well as bad infections. At least three have been wounded in land mine blasts, and dozens have drowned when boats capsized during sea crossings.

The violence and exodus began on Aug. 25 when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country. In response, the military unleashed what it called “clearance operations” to root out the insurgents. Accounts from refugees show the Myanmar military is also targeting civilians with shootings and wholesale burning of Rohingya villages in an apparent attempt to purge Rakhine state of Muslims.

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At Kutupalong, the world's largest refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, 200,000 people gather peacefully to remember the day, in 2017, when a violent crackdown by Myanmarese security forces compelled 740,000 Rohingya to flee over the border.