BANGKOK (Reuters) - The National Communications Commission (NTC) has issued a decision to stop telephone and related Internet services in the Rohingya refugee camp area on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, media reported on Monday.
According to local media reports, the TRA has issued a circular to the four telecom operators operating in the country to stop services to around one million refugees, to take the necessary measures to stop the use of Rohingya mobile phones, and to report on the development within a week.
The circular echoed a previous letter in October in which TRA asked telecom operators to limit the circulation of their Rohingya networks in Myanmar villages and towns near the Bangladesh border.
Officials in Bangladesh said that according to the previous letter, telecommunications companies have weakened the strength of their networks in the border area where refugees are moving, which has significantly affected telephone and Internet services.
There was no official explanation for the reasons for the decision, but it came about 10 days after the Rohingya refused to forcibly return them to their country without guarantees of their safety and return to their villages rather than to concentration camps, as well as the restoration of their nationalities and citizenship rights from freedom of work, travel, education and movement.
A campaign by the Myanmar military in August 2017, which the United Nations called "ethnic cleansing," led to the flight of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from Arakan province to the Cox's Bazar border area in southeast Bangladesh, where they live in squalid camps.
UN military investigators said the military operation in Myanmar involved killings, mass rape and arson, and was "the intention of genocide." Myanmar denies the charges.
Rohingya leaders have recently said they want Myanmar to recognize them as an ethnic group with the right to citizenship before they return there.