Rights groups want UN to ban Bangladesh’s RAB from peacekeeping

Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion has been accused by rights groups of gross human rights violations, including staging gunfights to kill alleged criminals.[Chowdhury/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images]

Human rights organisations documenting abuses committed by the Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have requested the United Nations to ban the unit’s members from its peace operations.

In a letter to Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix made public on Thursday, 12 human rights groups voiced concern “that individuals who have served with [RAB] are being sent on UN missions, despite consistent and credible evidence of abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances by members of this unit since its creation in 2004″.