Journalist in Rohingya refugee camp describes bracing for coronavirus without access to internet

Bangladesh | Digital Rights
This article is more than 4 years old

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

14 May 2020

1 minute read

At a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees share a cell phone to watch Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi at the International Court of Justice, 11 December 2019, MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty Images

Citizen journalist Ro Sawyeddollah narrates how the lack of internet service makes it more difficult for Rohingya refugees like himself to access information about COVID-19.

The following is an excerpt of a 4 May 2020 CPJ Blog post by Avi Asher-Schapiro/CPJ Global Tech Senior Correspondent.

Ro Sawyeddollah has lived in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, since he fled Myanmar along with thousands of other ethnic Rohingya in 2017, where the U.N. found that Rohingya live under threat of genocide.After arriving in Bangladesh, Ro Sawyeddollah was trained in citizen journalism by the World Food Program’s Storyteller initiative. His writing and photos have been featured in outlets such as the local Frontier Myanmar news website and French news wire France24, and he has worked as a fixer for international outlets like The Economist.

Since late 2019, the Bangladesh government has cut off internet access to Cox’s Bazar and blocked refugees from obtaining SIM cards, citing a black market in the camps to evade regulations that only Bangladeshis with national identification cards are allowed to obtain SIM cards and access the internet, according to news reports.

There are over 800,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations. There have not been any confirmed COVID-19 cases in the refugee camps, but there have been positive tests in nearby communities, according to reports.

Read the full blog post on CPJ’s site.

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