Myanmar/Bangladesh: Stuck In-between a “Corridor and a Camp”: How Myanmar's Persecution of Rohingya Refugees Has Also Put Elephants and Other Wildlife in Peril

Aug 3, 2018 | Abida Rahman Chowdhury, The Daily Star
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The Asian Elephants which entered Bangladesh for the forests of Teknaf and Ukhiya, did not plan on staying here for long. Because they remember their way out, come migration season they planned to make their way through the centuries-old elephant corridor (a trans-boundary migration route) through Ukhiya-Ghumdum, traverse through the forests of Myanmar, maybe stopover for a bit and then finally join others of their kind in Nyakkhongchori of Bandarban. But that route is now closed and possibly forever sealed off by the now sprawling Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar. The Rohingya refugees were the primary targets of a systematic persecution led by the Myanmar army which was dubbed as 'ethnic cleansing' by the United Nations.