"Beginning in late 1991, wide-scale atrocities committed by the Burmese military, including rape, forced labor, and religious persecution, triggered an exodus of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from the northwestern Burmese state of Arakan into Bangladesh.[1] Nearly 240,000 refugees, now housed in 19 camps in and around the Bangladeshi town of Cox?s Bazar, face the prospect of possible mass repatriation when the 1993 rainy season ends in October. That repatriation would be cause for concern on two grounds. First, though talks have taken place between Burmese authorities and Mrs. Sadako Ogata, head of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) to allow a UNHCR presence inside Burma, no final agreement has yet been reached, and grave concerns remain about military abuses in Arakan and thus about the safety of repatriated refugees. Second, when mass repatriations took place in 1992, they became the occasion for coercion and physical abuse of refugees by Bangladeshi authorities, raising serious doubts about whether most returned voluntarily. Asia Watch has not been able to investigate abuses on the Burmese side of the border. But in April 1993, an Asia Watch consultant visited the refugee camps in Bangladesh. He also met in Dhaka with officials in both the Foreign Ministry and the Home Ministry, local government officials in the Cox?s Bazar area directly responsible for implementing policy with respect to the Rohingyas, staff members of the UNHCR, foreign government officials, international relief workers, Bangladeshi human rights monitors, and refugees. The Bangladeshi government was cooperative in allowing the mission to take place. The Asia Watch consultant compiled evidence of verbal, physical and sexual abuse of refugees at the hands of Bangladeshi military and paramilitary forces in charge of the camps. Those abuses indicate the need for international agencies, particularly the UNHCR, to have full access to all camps to interview refugees in confidence about their willingness to return, and for the Bangladeshi authorities to investigate the pattern of abuse against refugees and bring those responsible to justice..."