Mabrur Ahmed
Director of International Human Rights Organisation, Restless Beings.Senior Researcher in following areas: Rohingya Refugees, Street Children Bangladesh, Assam NRC, Panjab Agrarian Crisis, Tigray and Ethiopia, Kyrgyz Women's Rights.
Delivered lectures, seminars, and workshops at high profile universities including: Columbia University, Queen Mary Univeristy, Dhaka University, Universiti Malaya, New Jersey City University, Panjab University, Southampton University, Warwick University and many others.
Covered by many media websites and channels including: BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Observer and more.
Provides policy advice to UK Parliament via APPG in Burma, Bangladesh, Rohingya. Launched report on Rohingya Genocide at British Houses of Parliament and also at Bangladesh Press Club in February 2018.
Phone: +44 7506100785
Delivered lectures, seminars, and workshops at high profile universities including: Columbia University, Queen Mary Univeristy, Dhaka University, Universiti Malaya, New Jersey City University, Panjab University, Southampton University, Warwick University and many others.
Covered by many media websites and channels including: BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Observer and more.
Provides policy advice to UK Parliament via APPG in Burma, Bangladesh, Rohingya. Launched report on Rohingya Genocide at British Houses of Parliament and also at Bangladesh Press Club in February 2018.
Phone: +44 7506100785
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Papers by Mabrur Ahmed
Since 7th October 2023, the Gaza region of Palestine has been under a constant bombardment by the Israeli Army that has seen in excess of 36,000 Palestinians murdered. In that time, the Israeli Army, with its stated intentions of recapturing hostages and ridding Gaza of Hamas, has been taken to trial by South Africa to the International Court of Justice under the crime of Genocide. Social media has been awash with the most horrifying scenes which have broadcast the utter destruction and devastation that the Gazans have faced. This report sought to establish if the attacks by the Israeli Army and State were designed to meet its stated intentions (reclaiming hostages and dismantling Hamas) or, as is the prognosis from the majority of those watching in disbelief, that the Israeli Army and State were attacking civilian infrastructure to bring about the shut down of Gazan society.
The attacking of civilian infrastructure is a war crime under the Geneva conventions and is also codified by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as such too. This report monitored the destruction of the following sections of civilian infrastructure: schools, religious buildings and institutes, telecommunications network, water and sanitation hygiene facilities, roads, and hospitals. Data was sourced from IDF official communications, Palestinian citizen reporting and media reporting on the above civilian infrastructure over the course of October 2023 to February 2024. By better understanding the patterns of the Israeli war efforts from army and State, Government(s) will be better positioned to understand if Israel is meeting its stated intentions or is in fact attacking the core of civilian society in Gaza.
Schools - 193 attacks on schools were recorded across 150 school buildings – 87 of those attacks came in December. There is a clear geographical trend of attacks occurring on schools in North to South direction over the months of the military campaign. In early December, Beit Lahia, Gaza City and Jabalia all in the North saw the brunt of attacks, whereas by February 2024, 55% of all attacks on school building had occurred in the Southern city of Khan Younis. On schools, the most used building for internally displaced people, all methods of attacks have been monitored – from aerial strikes, to sniper attacks, attacks from naval vessels as well as raiding and imprisoning civilians (at least 20 such attacks were monitored where civilian males were rounded up in schools and tortured or taken to unknown destinations).
Water - By 8th October, water had been cut off from North Gaza via the Al Mentar pipeline immediately affecting more than 610,000 in Gaza city alone. At the end of October only 5% of water for Gaza was being produced by the desalination plants due to the siege on fuel. Over the winter months, with water virtually not available, access to showers was now 1 shower to 700 Gazans and more than 120,000 cases of disease were reported ranging from diarrhoea, scabies and lice, rashes, and jaundice as a direct result of lack of access to clean water. By February 2024, diarrhoea cases of children under 5 had increased by 79% with 104,000 cases reported.
Roads - On monitoring the attacks on roads, it was clear that the destruction of roads in the north was to dismantle almost the entire population south towards other towns and cities - a third of attacks were focussed on Al Rashid Road and its junctions in the heart of Gaza City. A further 57% of attacks on roads were on the Salah Al Din Road which runs through Gaza North to South and connects the civilian towns of Jabalia, Zeitoun, Nuseirat, Maghazi, Deir al Balah and Khan Younis.
Telecoms - 11 of the 13 Palestinian telecoms provider have totally collapsed and are unable to offer any connectivity. The only two remaining telecoms providers PalTel and Mada operating at around 30% capacity have suffered multiple blackouts due to lack of access to fuel or mandated Israeli state network cut offs. As was the case with the attacks on roads and hospitals, the telecommunications blackouts by the Israeli state followed a north to south pattern – the second blackout recorded on 1st November 2023, left only 5% of the Middle Area governate with connectivity and the last recorded blackout monitored by this report on January 22nd left Rafah with only 5% connectivity.
Religious Buildings and Institutions - Of all attacks on religious buildings by the Israeli army, 83% of recorded attacks were on mosques. 36 Cemetries had been destroyed and corpse desecration is a noticeable trend amongst Israeli army attacks- in December 2023, 71% of all cemetery attacks were in the North of Gaza, while in January 2024 66% of all cemetery attacks were in Southern regions.
Hospitals - Across 146 days of monitoring, hospitals were attacked on 65% of those days. The attack on hospitals were systematic moving North to South to render all health facilities non-operational by the middle of February 2024. Roads around hospitals were attacked first to prevent patients from seeking or evacuating medical assistance. In the case of Al Quds, Kamal Adwan and Al Aqsa hospital, fuel was deliberately cut off leading to the death of kidney patients and premature babies in neonatal incubators. Just under half of Gaza’s hospitals and health facilities have been attacked multiple times by Israeli Army either by air, sea, or ground attacks.
The findings of the monitoring report show a clear Israeli targeting of civilian infrastructure from North to South and is systemic in following the civilian population to their areas of displacement with their attacks. In all of the 753 cases of civilian infrastructure attacks recorded in the report, civilian loss of life and the destruction of civilian society is clearly evidenced. Rather than meeting the stated intention of extracting hostages and dismantling Hamas, the most obvious findings in this report highlight destruction of places of refuge and accessibility of those who are displaced.
There has been no significant hostage extraction – a clear military objective of Israel. Rather, there are 36,000 civilian deaths. There has been no notable dismantling of Hamas leadership, and the vast majority of senior leaders are still in position – another clear military objective of Israel. Rather there is unfathomable destruction across civilian infrastructure of housing, schools, hospitals, and places of worship. Given the massive military aid that Israel receives from USA and given Israel’s highly equipped IDF it’s unmet stated military objectives should be discerning for the Israeli leadership. Rather, it seems quite apparent from the patterns identified in this report and by the price of thousands of civilian deaths and 80 years’ worth of destruction and debris, that Israel’s likely actual military objective was to cause mass extermination (labelled as such because Israel clearly sees Palestinians as less than human with senior administration using terms such as ‘human animals’)and mass expulsion – policies of violent colonisation and occupation.
In line with the above, funding to UN operations namely UNRWA, WHO and OCHA efforts should be supported and not defunded as has been the case in many situations. The Gaza civilian population is in risk of starvation, forced displacement to a third country and of further attacks whilst Government(s) do not recognise the Israeli strategy of attacks on Gaza - it is not to establish the safe return of hostages or of political change but an attack on civil society and civilian infrastructure – a clear and evidenced War Crime. Government(s) are therefore advised to withdraw from any arms trade and impose a full and complete arms embargo with a State that is clearly attacking civilians. Funding and active participation for humanitarian response to meet the needs of 2.2 million people must also be significantly raised.
Many solutions for the Rohingya have been bandied about by academics, diplomats and activists and yet almost 37 years after the 1982 Citizenship Law which effectively took away the rights of the Rohingya in Burma, none of those solutions have led to anywhere near the solution of citizenship and protection that the Rohingya have sought. The Genocidal wave of 2017 is not new; the Rohingya have been here before in 1978 and 1990’s when other waves of genocidal actions by the Burmese Military and Government have led to mass exodus. The solution of repatriation has failed. It failed in 1978 and it failed in 1992 and it will fail again once enacted by Burma and Bangladesh whether that’s in 2019, 2020 or any future date. Repatriation fails because it does not take into account the demands of the Rohingya people. And so diplomatic tools of lifting of sanctions without tangible changes in the lives of the common man have been not only premature but have also shifted the momentum away from changing civil society for the better. The reasoning and logic for the lifting of sanctions, whether that is from the USA or the EU or for that matter any other nation or group of nations ultimately was driven by economic growth chances rather than changes politically.
During the Bengal uprising against British colonial rule at the turn of the twentieth century prominent thinker and activist Sri Aurobindo opined that boycott was not just a passive form of resistance to colonial rule but an active one. In fact he went on to compare the boycotts of the Americans against British rule and even China’s boycotting of American goods too. To bring the call for boycott in relation to the Rohingya and Burma, more recent examples of boycotts against South Africa in view of their apartheid and the boycott, divest and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israeli occupation of Palestine are valuable comparatives.
With diplomacy, repatriation and sanctions currently not working as political solutions to the Rohingya genocide perpetrated by Burma, boycott has to be a very real solution that should be considered deeply. Any serious boycott of Burma cannot be singled down to things like travel bans or certain businesses. It cannot be on only issues such as sanctioning the trade of arms or jewels. It cannot be centered around the boycotting of Burmese academics and thought leaders. The boycott must be anchored by the suffering that the Burmese military and government has caused.
The boycott should be wide ranging and widely supported. If it cannot be supported by the international community through academia, media and political spheres, then we can all hold our hands up for watching an ethnic group being totally and irreversibly destroyed.
The objectives of the report were three pronged: to provide an overview of the current conditions in the camps and conditions that the refugees had to endure in Burma before arriving to Bangladesh; to analyse the current conditions in the camp including living conditions and provisions; to carry out a risk assessment of the camps to better understand potential risk concerns. The outcomes are to be presented to Governments to advise on policy and to NGO’s to advise on next steps to assist the refugees.
From the data collected it was found that 100% of respondents had witnessed destruction of property and had witnessed violence by Burmese military. More than 80% reported seeing killing by Burmese military with 28% witnessing death of a family member. 67% of interviewees had still not received adequate medical support and 30% had not received adequate shelter. More than 20% had witnessed pregnant women and girls being taken by Burmese military for rape. 14.6% had witnessed children being thrown into pits of fire by military personnel. Furthermore, obvious signs of post traumatic stress disorder were found amongst at least 10.4% of the sample size and 50% of child respondents cited fear of being abducted as their primary security concern. 8.3% of respondents had been approached by human traffickers to move to other parts of the region.
The findings conclude with clear evidence that the crime perpetrated by Burmese military operations from August and September meet the criteria of Genocide. It is recommended that NGO’s begin treating the refugees as genocide survivors and that they train their staff accordingly to manage the camps. Pregnant women are not sufficiently supported with medical assistance and NGO’s are urged to increase their medical services. Post traumatic stress disorder is also not adequately supported and NGO’s should also increase mental health and wellness activities. Additionally, the UN’s guidance for funding the refugee crisis remains unmet and Governments are urged to donate more generously to ensure that the funding demands are met. Without such, the risk of trafficking remains at large as identified by a plethora of agencies. Governments are also urged to press Burma to repeal the Citizenship Law of 1982 without which the problem will perpetuate. The repatriation deal at present is premature with no guarantee of safety, return of property and citizenship rendering the repatriation as merely a PR exercise. It also furthers the apartheid conditions that the Rohingya face in other internally displaced persons camps in Sittwe and elsewhere. The repatriation deal without citizenship, safety and property is fundamentally flawed and will need further revision before it becomes viable.
With genocide being clearly evident from the findings it is stressed vehemently to Governments to refer to the crisis as genocide and to press the UN Security Council for a referral to the International Criminal Court against Min Aung Hlaing the Commander –in-chief of the Burmese military
The mega camp that is now known as the Kutupalong Balukhali refugee camp houses more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees that have escaped violence and military led programs in Myanmar. Alongside this there are a number of other refugee camps or settlements that house Rohingya refugees. Thaingkhali, Palongkhali, Unchiparong, Leda Bazar, Shamlapur and Burmapara are others that have seen a dramatic rise in refugee populations since August 2017. In total almost 1 million Rohingya refugees are now residing in Bangladesh’s most southernly region of Cox’s Bazar district.
A line must however be drawn to identify existing refugee populations with the new wave of refugees after August 2017. Historically, this region has seen mass exodus after mass exodus since the late 1960’s as the reign of ethnically driven state level vitriol and military programs were first instituted on the Rohingya by various presidents of Myanmar but most notably led by Ne Win. Since then, although refugee numbers have peaked and troughed, one constant has been that this area has seen a continuous population of refugee communities.
Since 7th October 2023, the Gaza region of Palestine has been under a constant bombardment by the Israeli Army that has seen in excess of 36,000 Palestinians murdered. In that time, the Israeli Army, with its stated intentions of recapturing hostages and ridding Gaza of Hamas, has been taken to trial by South Africa to the International Court of Justice under the crime of Genocide. Social media has been awash with the most horrifying scenes which have broadcast the utter destruction and devastation that the Gazans have faced. This report sought to establish if the attacks by the Israeli Army and State were designed to meet its stated intentions (reclaiming hostages and dismantling Hamas) or, as is the prognosis from the majority of those watching in disbelief, that the Israeli Army and State were attacking civilian infrastructure to bring about the shut down of Gazan society.
The attacking of civilian infrastructure is a war crime under the Geneva conventions and is also codified by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as such too. This report monitored the destruction of the following sections of civilian infrastructure: schools, religious buildings and institutes, telecommunications network, water and sanitation hygiene facilities, roads, and hospitals. Data was sourced from IDF official communications, Palestinian citizen reporting and media reporting on the above civilian infrastructure over the course of October 2023 to February 2024. By better understanding the patterns of the Israeli war efforts from army and State, Government(s) will be better positioned to understand if Israel is meeting its stated intentions or is in fact attacking the core of civilian society in Gaza.
Schools - 193 attacks on schools were recorded across 150 school buildings – 87 of those attacks came in December. There is a clear geographical trend of attacks occurring on schools in North to South direction over the months of the military campaign. In early December, Beit Lahia, Gaza City and Jabalia all in the North saw the brunt of attacks, whereas by February 2024, 55% of all attacks on school building had occurred in the Southern city of Khan Younis. On schools, the most used building for internally displaced people, all methods of attacks have been monitored – from aerial strikes, to sniper attacks, attacks from naval vessels as well as raiding and imprisoning civilians (at least 20 such attacks were monitored where civilian males were rounded up in schools and tortured or taken to unknown destinations).
Water - By 8th October, water had been cut off from North Gaza via the Al Mentar pipeline immediately affecting more than 610,000 in Gaza city alone. At the end of October only 5% of water for Gaza was being produced by the desalination plants due to the siege on fuel. Over the winter months, with water virtually not available, access to showers was now 1 shower to 700 Gazans and more than 120,000 cases of disease were reported ranging from diarrhoea, scabies and lice, rashes, and jaundice as a direct result of lack of access to clean water. By February 2024, diarrhoea cases of children under 5 had increased by 79% with 104,000 cases reported.
Roads - On monitoring the attacks on roads, it was clear that the destruction of roads in the north was to dismantle almost the entire population south towards other towns and cities - a third of attacks were focussed on Al Rashid Road and its junctions in the heart of Gaza City. A further 57% of attacks on roads were on the Salah Al Din Road which runs through Gaza North to South and connects the civilian towns of Jabalia, Zeitoun, Nuseirat, Maghazi, Deir al Balah and Khan Younis.
Telecoms - 11 of the 13 Palestinian telecoms provider have totally collapsed and are unable to offer any connectivity. The only two remaining telecoms providers PalTel and Mada operating at around 30% capacity have suffered multiple blackouts due to lack of access to fuel or mandated Israeli state network cut offs. As was the case with the attacks on roads and hospitals, the telecommunications blackouts by the Israeli state followed a north to south pattern – the second blackout recorded on 1st November 2023, left only 5% of the Middle Area governate with connectivity and the last recorded blackout monitored by this report on January 22nd left Rafah with only 5% connectivity.
Religious Buildings and Institutions - Of all attacks on religious buildings by the Israeli army, 83% of recorded attacks were on mosques. 36 Cemetries had been destroyed and corpse desecration is a noticeable trend amongst Israeli army attacks- in December 2023, 71% of all cemetery attacks were in the North of Gaza, while in January 2024 66% of all cemetery attacks were in Southern regions.
Hospitals - Across 146 days of monitoring, hospitals were attacked on 65% of those days. The attack on hospitals were systematic moving North to South to render all health facilities non-operational by the middle of February 2024. Roads around hospitals were attacked first to prevent patients from seeking or evacuating medical assistance. In the case of Al Quds, Kamal Adwan and Al Aqsa hospital, fuel was deliberately cut off leading to the death of kidney patients and premature babies in neonatal incubators. Just under half of Gaza’s hospitals and health facilities have been attacked multiple times by Israeli Army either by air, sea, or ground attacks.
The findings of the monitoring report show a clear Israeli targeting of civilian infrastructure from North to South and is systemic in following the civilian population to their areas of displacement with their attacks. In all of the 753 cases of civilian infrastructure attacks recorded in the report, civilian loss of life and the destruction of civilian society is clearly evidenced. Rather than meeting the stated intention of extracting hostages and dismantling Hamas, the most obvious findings in this report highlight destruction of places of refuge and accessibility of those who are displaced.
There has been no significant hostage extraction – a clear military objective of Israel. Rather, there are 36,000 civilian deaths. There has been no notable dismantling of Hamas leadership, and the vast majority of senior leaders are still in position – another clear military objective of Israel. Rather there is unfathomable destruction across civilian infrastructure of housing, schools, hospitals, and places of worship. Given the massive military aid that Israel receives from USA and given Israel’s highly equipped IDF it’s unmet stated military objectives should be discerning for the Israeli leadership. Rather, it seems quite apparent from the patterns identified in this report and by the price of thousands of civilian deaths and 80 years’ worth of destruction and debris, that Israel’s likely actual military objective was to cause mass extermination (labelled as such because Israel clearly sees Palestinians as less than human with senior administration using terms such as ‘human animals’)and mass expulsion – policies of violent colonisation and occupation.
In line with the above, funding to UN operations namely UNRWA, WHO and OCHA efforts should be supported and not defunded as has been the case in many situations. The Gaza civilian population is in risk of starvation, forced displacement to a third country and of further attacks whilst Government(s) do not recognise the Israeli strategy of attacks on Gaza - it is not to establish the safe return of hostages or of political change but an attack on civil society and civilian infrastructure – a clear and evidenced War Crime. Government(s) are therefore advised to withdraw from any arms trade and impose a full and complete arms embargo with a State that is clearly attacking civilians. Funding and active participation for humanitarian response to meet the needs of 2.2 million people must also be significantly raised.
Many solutions for the Rohingya have been bandied about by academics, diplomats and activists and yet almost 37 years after the 1982 Citizenship Law which effectively took away the rights of the Rohingya in Burma, none of those solutions have led to anywhere near the solution of citizenship and protection that the Rohingya have sought. The Genocidal wave of 2017 is not new; the Rohingya have been here before in 1978 and 1990’s when other waves of genocidal actions by the Burmese Military and Government have led to mass exodus. The solution of repatriation has failed. It failed in 1978 and it failed in 1992 and it will fail again once enacted by Burma and Bangladesh whether that’s in 2019, 2020 or any future date. Repatriation fails because it does not take into account the demands of the Rohingya people. And so diplomatic tools of lifting of sanctions without tangible changes in the lives of the common man have been not only premature but have also shifted the momentum away from changing civil society for the better. The reasoning and logic for the lifting of sanctions, whether that is from the USA or the EU or for that matter any other nation or group of nations ultimately was driven by economic growth chances rather than changes politically.
During the Bengal uprising against British colonial rule at the turn of the twentieth century prominent thinker and activist Sri Aurobindo opined that boycott was not just a passive form of resistance to colonial rule but an active one. In fact he went on to compare the boycotts of the Americans against British rule and even China’s boycotting of American goods too. To bring the call for boycott in relation to the Rohingya and Burma, more recent examples of boycotts against South Africa in view of their apartheid and the boycott, divest and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israeli occupation of Palestine are valuable comparatives.
With diplomacy, repatriation and sanctions currently not working as political solutions to the Rohingya genocide perpetrated by Burma, boycott has to be a very real solution that should be considered deeply. Any serious boycott of Burma cannot be singled down to things like travel bans or certain businesses. It cannot be on only issues such as sanctioning the trade of arms or jewels. It cannot be centered around the boycotting of Burmese academics and thought leaders. The boycott must be anchored by the suffering that the Burmese military and government has caused.
The boycott should be wide ranging and widely supported. If it cannot be supported by the international community through academia, media and political spheres, then we can all hold our hands up for watching an ethnic group being totally and irreversibly destroyed.
The objectives of the report were three pronged: to provide an overview of the current conditions in the camps and conditions that the refugees had to endure in Burma before arriving to Bangladesh; to analyse the current conditions in the camp including living conditions and provisions; to carry out a risk assessment of the camps to better understand potential risk concerns. The outcomes are to be presented to Governments to advise on policy and to NGO’s to advise on next steps to assist the refugees.
From the data collected it was found that 100% of respondents had witnessed destruction of property and had witnessed violence by Burmese military. More than 80% reported seeing killing by Burmese military with 28% witnessing death of a family member. 67% of interviewees had still not received adequate medical support and 30% had not received adequate shelter. More than 20% had witnessed pregnant women and girls being taken by Burmese military for rape. 14.6% had witnessed children being thrown into pits of fire by military personnel. Furthermore, obvious signs of post traumatic stress disorder were found amongst at least 10.4% of the sample size and 50% of child respondents cited fear of being abducted as their primary security concern. 8.3% of respondents had been approached by human traffickers to move to other parts of the region.
The findings conclude with clear evidence that the crime perpetrated by Burmese military operations from August and September meet the criteria of Genocide. It is recommended that NGO’s begin treating the refugees as genocide survivors and that they train their staff accordingly to manage the camps. Pregnant women are not sufficiently supported with medical assistance and NGO’s are urged to increase their medical services. Post traumatic stress disorder is also not adequately supported and NGO’s should also increase mental health and wellness activities. Additionally, the UN’s guidance for funding the refugee crisis remains unmet and Governments are urged to donate more generously to ensure that the funding demands are met. Without such, the risk of trafficking remains at large as identified by a plethora of agencies. Governments are also urged to press Burma to repeal the Citizenship Law of 1982 without which the problem will perpetuate. The repatriation deal at present is premature with no guarantee of safety, return of property and citizenship rendering the repatriation as merely a PR exercise. It also furthers the apartheid conditions that the Rohingya face in other internally displaced persons camps in Sittwe and elsewhere. The repatriation deal without citizenship, safety and property is fundamentally flawed and will need further revision before it becomes viable.
With genocide being clearly evident from the findings it is stressed vehemently to Governments to refer to the crisis as genocide and to press the UN Security Council for a referral to the International Criminal Court against Min Aung Hlaing the Commander –in-chief of the Burmese military
The mega camp that is now known as the Kutupalong Balukhali refugee camp houses more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees that have escaped violence and military led programs in Myanmar. Alongside this there are a number of other refugee camps or settlements that house Rohingya refugees. Thaingkhali, Palongkhali, Unchiparong, Leda Bazar, Shamlapur and Burmapara are others that have seen a dramatic rise in refugee populations since August 2017. In total almost 1 million Rohingya refugees are now residing in Bangladesh’s most southernly region of Cox’s Bazar district.
A line must however be drawn to identify existing refugee populations with the new wave of refugees after August 2017. Historically, this region has seen mass exodus after mass exodus since the late 1960’s as the reign of ethnically driven state level vitriol and military programs were first instituted on the Rohingya by various presidents of Myanmar but most notably led by Ne Win. Since then, although refugee numbers have peaked and troughed, one constant has been that this area has seen a continuous population of refugee communities.