Rmah Bit fled to Cambodia in 2015 and put his own name down for return. He came back to house arrest, lost a leg in a military hospital in 2020, and died in March 2022.
Name Rmah Bit
Born 1975
Home Plei Nang village, Ea To commune, Ea Grai district
Died March 23, 2022
Account from His family and community, to DCHO
What happened to him
Rmah Bit was born in 1975 and lived in Plei Nang village, in Ea To commune, Ea Grai district. He fled to Cambodia on August 13, 2015.
He was there about two years before the UNHCR and the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments agreed a program to return Dega refugees from Cambodia to Vietnam. Rmah Bit signed his own name to that program, and was sent back on June 14, 2019.
He came home to his family and to house arrest. He had no freedom of movement. He went on pressing for the right to live as he chose, and got nowhere.
In September 2020 police commissioners took him to a military hospital, where one of his legs was amputated. His family understand the purpose of it plainly: a man with one leg does not run.
He fought hard for his life and his freedom.
He died on March 23, 2022, eighteen months after the amputation.
How the case ran
- Fled to Cambodia
Left Plei Nang for Cambodia.
- Returned under the deportation program
Signed his own name to the agreement between the UNHCR and the two governments, and was sent back.
- Leg amputated
Taken by police commissioners to a military hospital, where one leg was removed.
- Died
What we are reporting, and what we are not
The dates of his flight, his return and his death are as his family gave them to us. That he was taken to a military hospital by police and came back without a leg is their account and his own. We hold no medical record and no explanation from the hospital or the police, and none has been offered to his family. Why the leg was removed is what his family concluded from what was done to him; it has never been answered by anyone in authority.
Why it matters
Rmah Bit was not taken back by force. He signed. Refugees are asked to sign, on the understanding that returning is safe, and the agreements that move them are made between governments and an agency of the United Nations. What happened to him afterward is the part no agreement covers, and the part nobody was required to record.
If you returned under the same program
If you were returned from Cambodia under that agreement, or you know Rmah Bit’s family, please contact the Dega Central Highlands Organization.
