Four years ago today, Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion-led forces raided No Man’s Land. A DGFI officer and a young Rohingya mother were killed. Dil Mohammed, the camp’s spokesman, was at a scheduled meeting with Border Guard Bangladesh at the time. He was later named among more than 50 people accused in the officer’s killing.
Dhaka presented the raid as an anti-narcotics operation that turned into a gunfight. But leaked minutes from a senior Myanmar junta meeting record coordination between Myanmar and Bangladesh forces against Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), and describe a Bangladeshi special-forces operation in the camp. The documents show the raid in a wider context of collusion across the border against ARSA, with residents of No Man’s Land caught in the middle. Read the full story in the attachment below.
The camp was destroyed in a separate attack on 18 January 2023. The following day, Dil Mohammaed was arrested. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention later found his detention arbitrary and recommended his immediate release. He remains in prison. His international counsel, Haydee Dijkstal, has sent this statement.
Haydee Dijkstal – Barrister, 33 Bedford Row Chamber (International Counsel for Mr Dil Mohammed)
“Today marks not only the four-year anniversary of the violent raid on the refugee camp at No Man’s Land, but also the beginning of a horrific ordeal of abusive arbitrary detention for Mr Dil Mohammed – the prominent spokesman for the refugee camp and for its vulnerable refugee community who were forced to flee Myanmar only to find themselves in an insecure situation in No Man’s Land where their basic safety, security and rights were in constant jeopardy.
Mr Dil Mohammed’s advocacy and attention to the wellbeing of his community led to his arrest, enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention in Bangladesh after the raid on 14 November 2021 and the subsequent 18 January 2023 armed attack which saw the camp’s complete destruction and the population of No Man’s Land forced to fee for their lives again; this time into Bangladesh.
The abusive nature of Mr Dil Mohammed’s ongoing detention as a refugee from a vulnerable community cannot be overstated, yet to this day Bangladesh has done nothing to correct these abuses. Mr Dil Mohammed has been subjected to serious violations of his fundamental human rights, including his rights against enforced disappearance, against prolonged solitary confinement, against undue delay, and against abusive treatment as well as his rights to a lawyer and to a fair trial.
Although the UN cited the serious human rights violations against Mr Dil Mohammed to recognise his continued detention as arbitrary under international law, and to call for his immediate release, Bangladesh has failed to take any steps to comply with the UN’s decision and to remedy the nightmare Mr Dil Mohammed and his family have experienced for nearly four years. If Bangladesh is serious about confronting the pattern of enforced disappearance and abusive detentions of its recent past, then it must urgently release Mr Dil Mohammed and reunite him with his family.”
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