As desperation swells in the squalid camps that are home to a million Rohingya refugees, long-dormant - and often deadly - trafficking networks are being revived, Bangladeshi officials warn.Smugglers operating rickety fishing boats prey on the hopes of people who fled violence in Myanmar, charging them small fortunes for a dangerous journey to Southeast Asia, offering an empty promise of a fresh start.

With a repatriation plan in tatters and funding evaporating for a million refugees with ever-growing needs, Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh face a grim future one year after the latest eruption of a decades-old conflict.Raids by Rohingya militants on 25 August last year across Myanmar's Rakhine state spurred an army crackdown which the United Nations (UN) has likened to "ethnic cleansing".Around 700,000 of the Muslim minority fled by foot or boat to Bangladesh,

Widowed and alone 21-year-old Umme Kulthum had hoped for a fresh start in Bangladesh, but was forced into prostitution instead, falling victim to what aid groups and officials say is a growing trafficking scourge targeting refugees.Women and children make up the majority of the more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence in Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh, many escaping with only the clothes on their back and desperate to survive any way they can.Confined to congested tent c

Nations have pledged 345 million dollars (294 million euros) to care for Myanmar's Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an "encouraging" step in the response to the intensifying crisis, the UN said Monday.

Bangladesh on Thursday announced it would build one of the world's biggest refugee camps to house all the 800,000-plus Rohingya Muslims who have sought asylum from violence in Myanmar.The arrival of more than half a million Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-dominated Myanmar since August 25 has put an immense strain on camps in Bangladesh where there are growing fears of a disease epidemic.A Bangladesh minister gave details of the mega camp as Myanmar's army blamed Rohingya militants f

Bangladesh has deployed secret police in the burgeoning refugee camps near its border with Myanmar, where Rohingya claiming to be members of a militant group say they have found fertile ground for recruitment.Authorities in Bangladesh, which was already grappling with its own Islamist militancy problem before the latest mass influx of Rohingya refugees, have repeatedly said there are no extremists among the new arrivals.But inside the camps are a number of self-proclaimed members of the ARSA

Rashida Begum steers clear of the water pump near the reeking latrine shared by more than 100 families in a grim corner of Bangladesh that has grown into one of the world's largest refugee settlements in just weeks."The pump works, but the water stinks, so we don't drink it," the Rohingya woman said in the squalid camp where her family of 11 has lived since fleeing Myanmar a fortnight ago.The UN has warned of a humanitarian "nightmare" unfolding in Bangladesh&#03

The Muslim minority Rohingya people continue to flee their homes in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh for fear of continued persecution by their Buddhist majority government and military.According to the latest numbers released by AFP, 422,000 stateless refugees have fled the conflict zone since the recent spate of violence started on the August 25 to overcrowded camps along the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has issued a new call for Myanmar to take back the some 420,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence in the Buddhist-dominated country.Hasina, speaking to Bangladeshi activists in New York where she is attending the UN General Assembly, also called for greater international pressure on Myanmar over the new crisis which has unfolded in the past three weeks, media reports said."We have told Myanmar, they are your citizens, you must take the

Thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled violence in Myanmar in search of refuge could be forced to make their new homes on a barren Bangladeshi island that floods every year.The Bangladesh government has appealed for international support to move the Rohingya to the island as the impoverished country confronts a growing crisis over where to house an influx that has mounted following a military crackdown in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar's Rakhine state.More than 300,000 Rohingya have